Sonos’s new Era 300 is an immensely immersive experience
Smart speaker | £449 | whf.cm/Era300
“The goal with Era 300 was really to create the best standalone spatial audio experience of any single speaker.” As far as intentions go, it’s a bold statement from Sonos.
Sonos’s Era 300 is a wireless smart speaker that comes packing all the goodness and seamlessness of a Sonos system, with a key stand-out feature that Sonos believes is the next generation of sound: spatial audio.
Spatial audio has been in the spotlight in recent years, featuring in Dolby Atmos-soundtracked movies, TV shows and now music. Spearheaded by Apple, ‘spatial audio’ has turned into a catch-all term that covers any music that uses the Dolby Atmos format to create multiple channels of audio (beyond the standard two) to deliver a greater sense of immersion. For music, which has been in good ol’ stereo for many decades, that’s quite a big change.
Apple led the charge this year with its spatial audio-toting HomePod 2 smart speaker, which impressed us with its musical talents across the board. Will the bigger, more expensive Sonos Era 300 beat Apple at its own game? And, more importantly, deliver an enjoyable sonic experience beyond just spatial audio?
Sonos has priced the Era 300 at the premium end of the smart speaker market, clocking in at £449. That’s quite a hefty sum to pay – in comparison, the closest rival Apple HomePod 2 costs £299.
It’s still £50 shy of the most expensive wireless speaker that Sonos makes, which is the Sonos Five at £499. The big difference between the two is that the Five delivers stereo music; Sonos’s Era 300 ups the ante with an all-new design and spatial audio output.
Attention-grabbing design
There is no denying that the Era 300 has an unusual shape – a “cinched hourglass” design as Sonos calls it. It’s a bit bulky, and it doesn’t quite blend into the environment in the way its other speakers do, but we feel Sonos wants to stand out and attract attention with this speaker. With the 300 placed in a room, we find ourselves soon getting used to the style and just listening to the music it is delivering.
Like it or loathe it, it’s a design born out of necessity. With spatial audio playback being the Era 300’s focal point, this means a carefully considered but unusual arrangement of drivers and amplification that can fire out sound in all directions to deliver that ‘immersive’ audio experience – while still keeping a familial look that fits into Sonos’s family of speakers.
Inside the Er
