Sonos has unveiled its new speakers, the Sonos Era 300 and Era 100, marking the biggest shake-up of its audio hardware range since 2015.
So, is it worth putting off your purchase of a Sonos One or Sonos Five? Let’s not mess around, the answer is “yes, probably”.
The first thing you’ll notice is the new look: The new Era 300 is designed to provide “true” surround sound, and rival the Apple Homepod 2.
By comparison, the older Sonos Play One is fundamentally pretty similar to the Play:1 from 2013. And the Sonos Five is a minor tweak of the Play:5 from 2015. Brilliant as they are, perhaps it’s time for a new approach.
Sonos CEO Patrick Spence even took a swipe at tech giants such as Google and Amazon recently, saying, “We haven’t seen them, you know, doing anything interesting,” in audio, during an earnings call.
If the Era series is going to back up these words, what do they offer?
What are the Sonos Era 300 and 100?
The Sonos Era 300 is a “multi-directional” speaker, meaning it can spit sound out in multiple directions. This is used to employ the latest hot trend in sound, spatial audio. A 3D-surround-sound-like effect from a single speaker? Sounds good.
After all, 360-degree speakers can often end up sounding big, but a little vague. Spatial audio should help to fix this, as it does in the Apple Homepod 2.
In terms of its design, the Sonos Era 300 has quite a different, curvier shape to the current Sonos speaker. It blooms outwards at the front and back, with the trimmest part of its shell in the middle. Sonos describes it as a “cinched hourglass design” built for spatial audio.
Your first assumption might be the Sonos Era 300 is here to usurp the Sonos Five. However, the name sounds much closer to the Sonos Play:3 unit the company discontinued in 2018.
There were three tiers of main line all-in-one Sonos speakers to choose for years, but these were trimmed down to two in 2018. And it made sense because the Sonos One sounded too good to justify recommending the Three over it for most folks.
As for the Era 300, the new speaker sticks to the same design formula as the 100, but looks a bit rounder overall.
The physical controls on both devices, meanwhile, are on an indented bar.
How much does the Sonos Era series cost?
The Sonos Era 300 costs £449 , making it £100 cheaper than the Sonos Five. Whereas the Sonor Era 100 will set you back £249, slightly more than the £199 Sonos One.
The similar size and price range suggest that the smaller speaker may effectively replace the Sonos One, while the costlier Sonos Five could stick around despite the arrival of the Era 300.
Sonos also recently increased the prices for its compact sound bar, the Beam Gen 2 (from £449 to £499), and the Sub Gen 3 wireless subwoofer (from £749 to £799).
When will the Sonos Era series be released?
If you’re keen to get your hands on the new speakers, you can pre-order them now ahead of their March 28 release date.
Sonos Era series features
Despite being potentially only a mid-range model, the Era 300 looks set to offer the richest fidelity of any single speaker that Sonos has ever released.
It has six drivers that direct forward, left, right, and up. You can also combine a pair of the Era 300 speakers with the Sonos Arc or Beam (Gen 2) soundbar as rear surrounds to deliver Atmos surround sound with upward-firing audio.
In addition, it has support for the Wi-Fi 6 standard for smooth streaming over your home wi-fi and — unlike the current home-bound models — Bluetooth. The company has recently put this friendly wireless streaming standard into its portable speakers, like the Sonos Move and Sonos Roam.
We are actually more interested in the Sonos Era 100, likely to be the new baby in Sonos’s 2023 speaker line-up and a significant upgrade on the One.
The Era 100 isn’t tailored for spatial audio and does not pack upward-firing drivers. But, it does include a second tweeter to help deliver stereo sound, and a larger mid-woofer for stronger bass. That extra tech may explain why it is slightly larger and more rounded than the One, which fires sound out of its front.
Voice assistants including Sonos Voice Control and Amazon Alexa are on-hand on both speakers, but Google Assistant is currently missing from the mix.
Android phone can also use Trueplay to calibrate the speakers with their living space via the Sonos app.
Already supported on iOS, the feature measures how sound reflects off walls, furnishings and other surfaces in a room. It then optimises your speaker to achieve the best sound regardless of where it’s placed.
Unlike on iPhone and iPad, it’s the speakers themselves doing the room analysis using their built-in mics.
What spatial audio music services does the Sonos Era 300 support?
The Sonos Era 300 is the first third-party speaker to support Dolby Atmos tracks from Apple Music. It can also play spatial audio from Amazon Music at launch.
