Sonos Era

[GXAlan]

First 5 minute impression. I do own the Sonos Fives. I generally prefer flat in-room response rather than downsloping frequency responses and prefer lots of bass. (JBL 708P and Onkyo D-TK10 are my reference bookshelves. I like the original Magnepan MG-III which has a flatter in-room curve. I add super tweeters to my JBL S2600 to fill the >16 kHz region).

1) I like it better than the Sonos Five. The fives have disproportionately great bass for their size. The Sonos Era 300 is lean for the bass, but appropriately for its size. I put it in the class of JBL Studio 530 or closer to JBL Studio 620 (which has less subjective bass than the Studio 530). The Era300 is much smaller in person than expected. It's going to be a good fit w/the Sub.

The Sonos Five sounds great in a single seat in vertical stereo mode. Darko has a great subjective review where it's compared against the KEF LSX. I ended up using the Five's in stereo horizontal mode for their "room filling" casual listening sound.

The Era300 in a single position already sounds more to my preference.

2) I ran Trueplay with my iPhone 13 Pro Max. I am a big fan of Trueplay for both the Sonos Five and my bedroom Sonos Arc and kid's room Sonos Beam 2. My first impressions of the Era 300 were that it was lousy. Boomy and sounds like a small speaker trying to sound large. Turning TRUEPLAY OFF was much better. This removed the unnatural bass boost and instead it sounded like a good bookshelf. In this case, Trueplay worsened the sound from the Era 300 due to the aggressive bass boost. This is different from my experience with Trueplay and the other Sonos speakers.

3) I bought two, but am first trying it as a solo speaker. It does genuinely deliver a Magnepan flat-panel like sound that is bigger than you'd expect for the size without unnatural echo's or loss of resolution. Clever trick.

Oh it does have a day 1 firmware update too..

 

[GXAlan]

Red = Sub with Trueplay
Green = No subwoofer

No subwoofer

 

[mmi]

Red = Sub with Trueplay
Green = No subwoofer

Thanks @GXAlan!

The DXOMARK measurements of the 100 threw me, the mismatch and distortion at the crossover look pretty bad. Could (maybe?) be fixed with an update if they do their crossovers in DSP, but I am not sure if they do.

 

[mmi]

3) I bought two, but am first trying it as a solo speaker.

Would love to hear your impressions of it in stereo, particularly with normal (non-atmos) content!

 

[GXAlan]

I put the Era 300’s as rears. Here, they are OK. Better than Sonos One’s for sure. The problem is that as you bring up the volume, the Era 300 speakers does a nice job of a rear surround sound field, but the Sonos Arc pulls down the overall experience. I am one who never loved the sound of the Arc but respected it for the constraints of a soundbar and it’s exceptional reliability.

A quad Era 300 would be a far better setup than the Arc + Era 300 pair.

My Atmos reference is “how good is the Top Gun Maverick scene in the control room with the radio voice overs.” In this case, the Era 300 doesn’t give me the overhead experience that even something like an out of phase diffuse rear sound would. But what is good is that you cannot localize the Era 300 easily even in rear speaker use where speaker position is flawed.

Thanks @GXAlan!

The DXOMARK measurements of the 100 threw me, the mismatch and distortion at the crossover look pretty bad. Could (maybe?) be fixed with an update if they do their crossovers in DSP, but I am not sure if they do.

Agreed. The 100 seems to be really cost constrained. I am not sure how much DSP is done via the crossover but the presence of Trueplay should mean that they can fine tune the sound of needed.

As an aside, DXO ran Airplay as their test platform.

For the Era 300 measurements, I used REW, generated a 24/48 kHz 4M sweep and then used the SMB networking feature to read the file from my NAS. I wonder if there is something that makes Airplay not work as well.

Testing the Era 300 in stereo is the next step. Based upon my “huh, those measurements look great” for the single speaker and it’s ability to throw sound with a cleaner subjective IMD compared to the Sonos Five’s triple tweeter design, I would expect the Era 300 to be the superior stereo setup for non critical listening.

Just off the mono speaker, I would expect its sound field to be like the Magnepan. Great sounding with clear phantom center with nice stereo effects but not the pinpoint imaging you can get with classic “audiophile” monitor speakers

The Sonos Five in vertical mode, uses just a single tweeter and all three woofers. With Trueplay, it’s an obvious good setup. One person even liked them subjectively more than their Genelec flagships for mainstream music like Kelly Clarkson! (I have to find the thread).

 

[thewas]

Red = Sub with Trueplay
Green = No subwoofer

Wow, these in-room measurements put many "high end" audio systems to shame!

 

[GXAlan]

Wow, these in-room measurements put many "high end" audio systems to shame!

I know! The key is that it’s SPL limited. @napilopez even showed how the battery powered Roam measures great on a full spinorama too.

Sonos Roam Portable Speaker: Spinorama and measurements (more proof mainstream speakers can be real good)

Measured the Sonos Roam today, the company's new, smaller bluetooth speaker. Here's the spin at 80% volume (measured at ~ 0.6m). So this is around 76dB@1m. Please read the disclaimer at the end of the post And here an estimate of it at 60% volume (i spliced a nearfield woofer measurement...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Sonos is driven by science, with the largest anechoic chambers in the world for audio.

They have silly economies of scale where the Era 300 is made in Malaysia and assembled in China. For them the shipping costs must be lower than the labor savings.
Their software is robust and reliable, being a U.S. based company.

This is part of why the audio hobby is dying. You have thousand dollar cables while a $450 -15% educational discount speaker gets you pretty close to “very good” without much effort.

SPL limitation is there. I measured at 50% because that’s where I thought it sounded best to my ears. Above that and you hear the enclosure.

 

[RobL]

I was visiting my son today and noticed he had an Era 300 in his “living room” (it’s a smallish apartment). I asked him if I could hear it and I played a few tracks from Apple music over airplay through it. It plays quite deep but not terribly loudly, as has been mentioned. To be honest, it wasn’t terribly impressive, sounding very small to me. I don’t think I could be satisfied with such a device. My wife thought it was too “tinny” in her own words, though I thought it very balanced. He and his fiancé are happy enough with it, though.

 

[bevok]

I was visiting my son today and noticed he had an Era 300 in his “living room” (it’s a smallish apartment). I asked him if I could hear it and I played a few tracks from Apple music over airplay through it. It plays quite deep but not terribly loudly, as has been mentioned. To be honest, it wasn’t terribly impressive, sounding very small to me. I don’t think I could be satisfied with such a device. My wife thought it was too “tinny” in her own words, though I thought it very balanced. He and his fiancé are happy enough with it, though.

Hopefully it can be enjoyed with another one to make a pair at some point! Looking forward to hearing these, especially in Atmos.

 

[GXAlan]

I was visiting my son today and noticed he had an Era 300 in his “living room” (it’s a smallish apartment). I asked him if I could hear it and I played a few tracks from Apple music over airplay through it. It plays quite deep but not terribly loudly, as has been mentioned. To be honest, it wasn’t terribly impressive, sounding very small to me. I don’t think I could be satisfied with such a device. My wife thought it was too “tinny” in her own words, though I thought it very balanced. He and his fiancé are happy enough with it, though.

Your son might have run Trueplay. That was my experience where I surprisingly didn’t like it. It got very aggressive with the bass boost but then it caused the midrange to be congested. By disabling true play or running the “dumb” trueplay, it actually worked better. Complete opposite of the other Sonos speakers and trueplay.

I ran the REW sweep using a direct network connection not Airplay, but it should work. I was using Amazon music for my music testing.

 

[RobL]

Your son might have run Trueplay. That was my experience where I surprisingly didn’t like it. It got very aggressive with the bass boost but then it caused the midrange to be congested. By disabling true play or running the “dumb” trueplay, it actually worked better. Complete opposite of the other Sonos speakers and trueplay.

I ran the REW sweep using a direct network connection not Airplay, but it should work. I was using Amazon music for my music testing.

He had it on the Sonos stand about a foot from the wall but I’m not sure whether trueplay was activated. Hope I didn’t sound too critical, it sounds very balanced and very much like any other neutral speaker I’ve heard, it’s just missing “size”? to the sound…not sure how else to say it. It would be nice to hear a stereo pair of them, as @bevok mentioned.

 

[GXAlan]

He had it on the Sonos stand about a foot from the wall but I’m not sure whether trueplay was activated. Hope I didn’t sound too critical, it sounds very balanced and very much like any other neutral speaker I’ve heard, it’s just missing “size”? to the sound…

It’s good to be critical . They seemed brighter than other Sonos speakers I have had in the past but just offering a suggestion if your son is a bit of an audiophile (like you too) to try it with trueplay off (or the automated mode).

I bought mine for rear Atmos in the bedroom setup. Decided to try it for fun for music. I had it on a console so I should have some added bass, but Trueplay boosted the bass even more and “tinny” does describe what I heard in voices (despite bass). Turning it off or using the mode where the on board microphone is used instead of your smartphone in a moving mic method improved the sound for me.

Agree on missing “size” and if you have Genelec’s, it is no comparison. The 708P sounds bigger than its size too. For the Sonos Era 300, with Trueplay on, it sounded like a small speaker trying to boost its EQ like a cheap car audio. With no Trueplay or automated True Play, it sounded surprisingly good like a nice premium bookshelf speaker.

I asked Amir if he could test it but it sounds like the NFS isn’t great with these complex arrays.

 

[voodooless]

@GXAlan are you at the latest firmware? I’ve seen reports that the latest firmware should fix some issues with SQ (notably bug fixes for Trueplay). It should also allow Atmos via Apple Music in the Sonos app on Era 300.

 

[posvibes]

Sonos Era 300 review: sparkling wifi hi-fi raises bar for spatial audio

Powerful speaker with quality sound shows how to do immersive music right, if you can find a good track

www.theguardian.com

 

[Moonhead]

Could be a better than Sonos3/5…

Sonos Era 300 Review

The Sonos Era 300 is a 2023 release from this manufacturer. Available in both Black and White, this stereo speaker is designed for home use, and it's easy to int...

www.rtings.com

 

[GXAlan]

I ultimately returned it because it was too big on the nightstand for rear speakers. Hard to appreciate until it was here.

For audio, I stand by it being better than the Sonos Five for music. It’s also the speaker I would recommend to someone who isn’t an audiophile and wants great sound with minimal tech support needed.

The Sonos Five can give you more bass and more precise imaging in the center, but the Era 300 sounds more natural. Even though frequency response is clean, I still prefer my current references, the JBL 708P and Onkyo D-TK10 thanks to improved perceived resolution/less IMD

 

[fabius]

I've had a Sonos One for a couple of years and recently got an Era 100. I briefly put them next to each other and switched between them (playing via Apple Airplay) to see if I could tell the difference - my ears aren't especially choosy. This was in a terrible room for audio - a conservatory, all glass windows and a tiled floor.

They sounded pretty similar, but I could tell the difference. The Era 100 definitely has a bit more bass - I think it's more noticeable lower notes, rather than simply louder bass. And there was something slightly clearer about the music. By comparison, somewhere in the sound seemed a bit muddled on the One, but I'm not attuned enough to figure out what.

Using the Era 100 this morning, with Apple Fitness Plus, I definitely noticed the background music was fuller, more bassy (in a good way), than when I used to use the One for that.

 

[DeepSthBoy]

Sonos measure better out of the box than most of the speakers people talk about here. Just search the forums for quasi anechoic measurements by Napilopez and others. And that is before you get room and phase correction for free with a wave of your phone.

They make everything from the drivers to the screws to the chips to exacting standards. They spend as much or more than Harman in its heyday on R&D (>.5 billion). They have the largest anechoic chamber in the world for gods sake! I don’t get why people on this forum hold this ignorant belief that they sound bad. I prefer my Sonos speakers to my Genelecs.

Making negative comments re Sonos systems is undeniably ignorant. Proof is in the pudding. If you'd always choose a different brand to "sound cool", then ignore the Sonos, but I have the Arc soundbar, two Era 300s, a Sub, and four Ones. I have not been in a sound studio, but I have never been to anyone's house whose system sounds even close to mine...

 

[srrxr71]

Your son might have run Trueplay. That was my experience where I surprisingly didn’t like it. It got very aggressive with the bass boost but then it caused the midrange to be congested. By disabling true play or running the “dumb” trueplay, it actually worked better. Complete opposite of the other Sonos speakers and trueplay.

I ran the REW sweep using a direct network connection not Airplay, but it should work. I was using Amazon music for my music testing.

When I had single Sonos 5 instead of waving the phone around the room as they suggest I just sat in my listening position and waved it in front of me. Seemed to be better.

 

[music_lover]

I wanted to see what the Sonos hype was about after Amir reviewed the Sonus 5 that measured decently. So I pulled the trigger on the Era 100.
Sound quality wise , I am a little disappointed. It’s not bad sounding, but it’s not good either . I have the JBL 305s. Sadly it doesn’t come close to the JBLs sound quality . The bass on the era sounds deep and punchy and is decently tight , but it also kinda overpowers the vocals . It is ever so present in all the tracks I tested. I also hear the upper midrange being a little recessed. Now for a wireless/bluetooth speaker, it is good , yes . In fact very good. But when compared to other options under $400, it doesn’t sound as good . Does anyone here also have similar experience like mine with this speaker or any Sonos speaker?