Just wanting an update on this topic. I see requests for this are going on a year old and all topics relating to it are being closed for comments.
Is this a feature that is being worked on? I recently bought 2 ERA 300’s and now debating returning them after finding this out. Like others have said I paid for 6 drivers and want to be able to use 6 drivers.
Is there any updates on this concern that many customers seem to share?
All topics which haven’t had a reply in X amount of time are closed, regardless of the subject.
+17
Since it was a deliberate choice (after testing) to not use the front driver on the Era 300 I do not think Sonos are working to change this.
Since this was a deliberate choice by Sonos, the maker of these speakers, why do you not trust them this is the best choice for sound? Why would you want to be able to use all six drivers when Sonos found this not to give the best sound experience?
Since this was a deliberate choice by Sonos, the maker of these speakers, why do you not trust them this is the best choice for sound? Why would you want to be able to use all six drivers when Sonos found this not to give the best sound experience?
As someone who’s invested heavily in a full living room Atmos setup (currently 7.4.4), there’s really no reason to have the front-facing driver of a surround sound speaker disabled. If you compare the Era 300s with existing “atmos-enabled” speakers on the market, the majority of those speakers are either a monopole design with upfiring coaxial, point-source driver or two-way design. Obviously they don’t disable the forward facing driver, since doing so would remove one of the object-source locations from the sound field.
The only exception here would be if the Era 300s are being treated as bipole or dipole speakers when used as surrounds, which...ok...but given the placement Sonos recommends for the Era 300s in a surround configuration, that would be counter-intuitive...since that recommended placement indicates it should behave like a typical atmos-enabled monopole surround speaker and not a bipole / dipole speaker. You wouldn’t have a bipole / dipole speaker placed that close as a rear surround in a typical 5.1 setup.
Example: https://blog.teufelaudio.com/dipole-effect-speakers-surround-sound/
Bipole / Dipole speakers (in general) are also not-great for Atmos soundtracks because the object tracking in the sound field embedded within the track won’t be recreated accurately since the directivity would be split and diffused by the angled speakers when the processor is expecting a monopole speaker for the rear surround.
With the front-driver enabled on the Era 300s, you’d effectively have a similar design to a JBL Synthesis S4Ai Surround Speaker (albeit with less configurability, obviously). http://www.reference-av.co.uk/jbl-synthesis-s4ai-in-wall-surround-loudspeaker/
I tend to agree w/ the original poster. It’s a weird design decision and I’m not convinced it would outperform a monopole design in a typical 5.1 or Atmos setup.
edited for clarity
Been trying to enjoy the Era 300s, but I can’t help but feel ripped off using these for surround sound. I have 2 arcs, 2 sub (g3) 2 SL1s, 2 E300s. The system with the SL1s blows the system with the E300s away and by a lot. Full buyers remorse has set in and I feel like I got hustled by Sonos. I use to have a high level of trust for them after experiencing all of the other products I’ve used. Why would I want to buy $900 in speakers when the main speakers are disabled? I should have went with the E100s or SL1s, total waste of money in my theater setup.
Came across this topic of era 300 front drivers disabled when using them as surround. thank God was so close to buy e300 to replace the one's nope I'll stick with one's until problem is fixed.
+22
What problem?
As said above it was done based on much testing as it sounds better.
Could Sonos just put a toggle in the app to allow us to utilise the Era 300s as a full stereo speaker setup for music? Then when untoggled it goes back to the front speaker disabled surround sound mode with the Arc/Sub?
Could Sonos just put a toggle in the app to allow us to utilise the Era 300s as a full stereo speaker setup for music? Then when untoggled it goes back to the front speaker disabled surround sound mode with the Arc/Sub?
No, they cannot. It’s important to understand what is at work here. When adding surrounds/Subs, in order to maintain sync with the video, the radios are reconfigured to a low latency, one-way dedicated 5 GHz connection from the soundbar to the surrounds and Sub. This requires a series of handshakes to get right, which is why adding surrounds/Subs takes a bit of time. The reverse happens when the surrounds/Subs are removed. So therefore, a quick toggle between the two is not possible. They could place a hot button that does the add/remove at the touch of the button, but that is not going to speed up the actual process, and doesn’t save much from the system menu commands we have today.
An alternative would be allowing one to mute the front device and just play out of the surrounds, which would appear to be easier to do, but I defer to the actual engineers on the practicality of the idea, especially with regards to a spatial audio setup with Era 300s. I’m sure switching from sending just surround info to sending a full Atmos audio stream through the Era 300 surrounds from the soundbar isn’t trivial, and given hardware limitations of the decoder and the way it is wired to the soundbar, may not even be possible.
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