SONOS ERA 300

The SONOS ERA 300 feature a USB-C ports that let you plug in a turntable or other audio equipment with an optional line-in adapter.

The SONOS ERA 300 with its striking hourglass design. As much as it might look slick as hell, there is a very real benefit to the aesthetic: it’s here to make the most out of both Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos sound with an array of speakers that fire upwards and outwards, as well as straight forwards.

The result is a much more immersive soundscape that actually lives up to the ‘room-filling’ billing that so many speakers claim for themselves. Something that’s especially the case when you’re using a pair of Era 300 in conjunction with Sonos’ Arc soundbar for a truly cinematic surround sound experience.

Since not all the music you listen to or have available might be mastered in Dolby Atmos, it’s probably worth noting that the Sonos Era 300 will create the effect itself for the latest Boy genius, Caroline Polachek or whatever you happen to have on rotation at the moment. The SONOS ERA 300 packs a seriously all-encompassing punch.

The Sonos Era 300 houses six drivers inside its distinctive enclosure, a box with an indented mid-section—almost like an hourglass that’s been flipped on its side. The driver setup consists of a single horn-loaded tweeter firing up to bounce frequencies off the ceiling when playing Atmos content; a front-firing mid-tweeter acting as a centre channel; and two additional mid-tweeters that point left and right for stereo output. A pair of woofers at the bottom sides of the speaker point left and right, also for stereo.

Each driver gets its own Class D amplifier, and Sonos says it fine tunes each driver’s directionality with custom wave guides and digital signal processing, which is a big part of its secret sauce. Here again, Sonos declined to provide a more granular description of the Era 300’s amplifiers.

Sonos engineer Kylie Muntean says the company built and tested “dozens” of prototypes with different dimensions, drivers, wave guides, and DSP tunings, and this design proved “the best, the most accurate at placing the signals into the sound field where the music producer and engineer intended them to be. We were certainly aware of what other makers had done and made it our mission to top them all.”

The SONOS Era 300 puts out full-range and distinct left, right, and height cues, a significant advance over earlier Sonos home-theatre setups, in which the surround speakers were limited to sharing a Dolby Pro Logic feed. In our demo, this upgrade made for some dynamic, you-are-there effects, including an ultra-scary, monster-on-the-loose scene from the film A Quiet Place.

Should you deploy a pair of the smaller Sonos Era 100 speakers as the surround channels with a Sonos Arc or Beam up front, a Sonos claims you will get “an Atmos experience rendered in 7.1.4…in much the same way the Beam Gen 2 does. This allows the height information to take on a front/rear depth that is much better than keeping the height content to only the front stage.

AUDIO
Amplifiers Six class-D digital amplifiers precision-tuned for the speaker’s unique acoustic architecture power your sound experience.
Tweeters Four tweeters ensure faithful playback of high and mid-range frequencies.

The forward-firing mid tweeter provides a smooth centre image while two side-firing mid tweeters create stereo separation. Loaded into a directional horn, the upward-firing tweeter reflects sound off the ceiling when playing Dolby Atmos content.

Woofers Two woofers maximise low-end output and are angled left and right to support stereo playback.
Microphones The far-field microphone array uses advanced beam-forming and multichannel echo cancellation for quick and accurate voice control and Trueplay tuning. Disconnect by toggling off the mic switch. Adjustable EQ Use the Sonos app to adjust bass, treble, and loudness.

Trueplay This software measures the acoustics of the room then fine-tunes the EQ. Compatible with iOS and Android devices.

DETAILS + DIMENSIONS
Dimensions Height: 160 mm
Width: 260 mm
Depth: 185 mm
Weight 4.47 kg
Colours Black, White
Finish Matte

Controls Use the capacitive touch controls to play, pause, skip, replay, adjust the volume, mute your voice assistant, and group or ungroup Sonos products.
Bluetooth Button Press to pair with a Bluetooth device.

Mic Switch Toggle off this switch on the back of the product to disconnect all power to the microphone hardware.
LEDs Lights on the product indicate connection, microphone activity, and mute status.

POWER + CONNECTIVITY
WiFi Compatible with WiFi 6. Connect to WiFi with any 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax 2.4 GHz/5 GHz broadcast-capable router.
Bluetooth Bluetooth 5.0 supports audio streaming from any Bluetooth-enabled device.
Voltage 100-240V 50/60Hz internal power supply.

USB-C Connect an audio source using a 3.5 mm auxiliary cable and the Sonos Line-In Adapter. Connect your router with an Ethernet cable and the Sonos Combo Adapter (all accessories sold separately).
CPU Quad Core
4xA55 1.9GHz
Memory 8 GB DDR4
8 GB NAND
Voice Works with Sonos Voice Control and Amazon Alexa. Availability of services varies by language and country.
Apple AirPlay 2 Works with AirPlay 2 on Apple devices iOS 11.4 and higher.

BOX CONTENTS
Power Cable Length: 6 ft (2 m)
Documentation Quickstart Guide and legal/warranty information

REQUIREMENTS
WiFi Internet connection
Power Source Nearby electrical outlet