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Is one Sonos Era 300 better than two Sonos Era 100?

  • 18 July 2023
  • 8 replies
  • 12053 views
alfporto
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I am about to replace a Bose Home Speaker 500 with Sonos. And here begin all my doubts...
I live in a studio of 30 square meters and I use the speaker to listen to music mainly. I give importance to bass, although I don't have the budget for a Sub Mini yet.

With a budget of around 500/600 Euros, I have the doubt of whether to start buying a Sonos Era 300 or two Sonos Era 100. For comfort and space at home, a single Sonos Era 300 is better for me today, but I want to invest in a Sonos system that is worth expanding in the future.

I'm not the first person to ask about this, but I'm not clear on the answers. Maybe it's better to buy a single Era 300 and invest in a few years in a [second Era 300] instead of buying [two Era 100s today + Beam (2nd Gen) in the future]?

Thank you!

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Best answer by Ken_Griffiths 18 July 2023, 14:48

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8 replies

Ken_Griffiths

Hi @alfporto,
Because you have a long term ambition to expand your music system, I would simply go with the one Era-300 as a starting point, it has a wide stereo image when standalone, although clearly that’s not as wide as two entirely separate Era-100’s, but the Era-300 plays Atmos music too. I also think you could even get away without a sub-mini as the bass on the Era-300 is particularly good. So that would be my own personal choice, but then start saving because a stereo pair of Era 300’s do sound incredible IMHO.

melvimbe

I’m not sure anyone could really answer this for you.  I would rank the possible setups as follows, #1 being the best.  Bo

1 - Two Era 300s + sub  

2- Two Era 100s + sub 

3 - Two Era 300s

4 - Two Era 100s

5 - One Era 300

6 - One Era 100

 

How much your budget will allow or how you want to build up your system is personal choice.  I probably would go with Era 100s + mini sub to keep the budget low and would fill up that space well., but Era 300s + full sub is really really good.

Danny
K

I don’t use the latest Era products; I suspect they are somewhat compromised for music in also serving TV needs. 

For music play in small spaces, I would go with a Sonos One pair. And add a Sub later as budget is available, as long as it can be placed in the same plane as the speaker pair, somewhere between the two speakers.

If that is not practical, I would use a 5 pair. 

In all cases, I would use Trueplay tuning for best results.

melvimbe

I don’t use the latest Era products; I suspect they are somewhat compromised for music in also serving TV needs. 

 

 

Based on what reasoning would you draw this conclusion?  The Era 100 and 300 can only be used as rear surrounds in home theatre setup, same as Sonos One.

 

For music play in small spaces, I would go with a Sonos One pair. And add a Sub later as budget is available, as long as it can be placed in the same plane as the speaker pair, somewhere between the two speakers.

 

 

Why would you recommend Sonos One instead of Era 100?  There is $30 cost difference between them with improved hardware and features in the Era 100.

 

Danny
alfporto
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Thank you all very much for your answers! As @Ken_Griffiths says, I think the key is that long term ambition, so I think I will start with the Era 300 and add a second Era 300 in the future. I don't want to repeat the same mistake as with the Bose and have to rebuild the sound system in the future.

106rallye
Userlevel 7
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One advantage of the Sonos One is it does Google Assistant. The Era 100 is SVC and Alexa only. Both SVC and Alexa have limited language support.

S

I’m not sure anyone could really answer this for you.  I would rank the possible setups as follows, #1 being the best.  Bo

1 - Two Era 300s + sub  

2- Two Era 100s + sub 

3 - Two Era 300s

4 - Two Era 100s

5 - One Era 300

6 - One Era 100

 

How much your budget will allow or how you want to build up your system is personal choice.  I probably would go with Era 100s + mini sub to keep the budget low and would fill up that space well., but Era 300s + full sub is really really good.

I have combo 1 and absolutely love it!

jgatie

I don't own any Era speakers, so you know what?  I'm not going to give an opinion on something I've never experienced, especially one loaded with rampant speculation and an incredibly bitter bias.

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