Sonos Era 300 review: A big bet on spatial audio

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If you pay attention to the music industry, you’ve probably heard about spatial audio. The promise is that music will envelop the user from all directions without needing a room full of speakers to achieve the effect. Apple has pushed it a lot in the last few years, in Apple Music, its line of AirPods headphones and the latest HomePod speaker. Amazon’s streaming service also offers spatial audio, and its Echo Studio speaker can play back compatible tracks.

Sonos has been paying attention, as well – its recent Arc and Beam soundbars support Dolby Atmos for movies, and now the company is releasing its first music speaker designed for spatial audio, the Era 300. This beast is large and has an unusual shape to accommodate all the drivers needed for achieving these room-filling effects. At $450, you’d expect this speaker to sound excellent, regardless of whether it’s playing back spatial audio or not, but support for this new format is what sets it apart from other speakers. As such, the big question on my mind is whether this feature is a game changer, a gimmick, or somewhere in between?

Pros

• Excellent sound quality
• Simple set-up
• Trueplay tuning is easier than ever
• Bluetooth and line-in options
• Works with just about any music service

Cons

• Spatial audio experience can be hit or miss
• Expensive
• Looks a little weird
• No more Google Assistant support

Design

There’s nothing in the Sonos lineup to compare the Era 300 to. From a size and weight perspective, it’s a large speaker, similar to the Sonos Five, but its unusual shape immediately sets it apart. Seen from the front its oval reminds me of a race track, but any other angle reveals a distinctive footprint. If you look at it from the top, it’s thinner near the middle than it is on the ends; the best way I can describe it is a knocked-over hourglass.

This is to accommodate the complex driver array inside the Era 300. There’s one tweeter pushing out from dead center, and two more sending audio out the left and right sides. Finally, there’s a fourth tweeter inside a directional horn pointed upwards; Sonos says that it’s at a specific angle optimized for spatial audio. Two woofers, again on either side of the speaker, complete the array.

The Era 300 reminds me of most other recent Sonos products. It is well-built, exceedingly sturdy and generally feels like a product that justifies its high price tag. That said, its physical appearance is definitely more unusual than the company’s other speakers. I recognize that it’s functional, but the combo of its size and strange tapering make it stand out more than you might like.

A lot of new features and changes in the Era 100 are also found in the Era 300. This includes a redesigned set of touch controls on the top panel, a USB-C port for line-in and ethernet (provided you shell out for the optional adapters), a Bluetooth toggle and a switch to physically disconnect the microphone on the back. For more on these features, I’ll point you to the relevant section of my Era 100 review. Most everything I said there applies. That said, for $450, it’s a little disappointing that Sonos requires an adapter for line in or Ethernet. The $550 Sonos Five has both of those built right in. I’m sure the company has the data showing that a small percentage of owners use those features, so I’m glad they haven’t been removed completely, but it would definitely be nice if they didn’t require an adapter.

Setup

Setting up the Era 300 is pretty simple, even if you don’t already have a Sonos system. You’ll need to download the Sonos app to your phone and set up an account; from there, the app will look and see if there are any speakers to add. You’ll also need to log in to your audio services of choice – if you want to try spatial audio, you’ll need either Apple Music or Amazon Music Unlimited. You can search for and play music through the Sonos app, but there are also a bunch of options if you’d rather stick with the music apps you’re used to. You can use AirPlay 2 to shoot audio from Apple Music and other services on the iPhone directly to the Era 300, or use Spotify Connect without needing to go through the Sonos app. That said, it’s worth noting that if you want to play back tracks in spatial audio, you’re required to use the Sonos app.

There are a few optional but useful things you can do while you’re setting up the Era 300. The first is Trueplay, a feature that tunes your speaker’s output based upon where it’s placed in your room. Trueplay has been around since 2015, but in the past it required you to have an iPhone. You’d have to walk around your room slowly raising and lowering the phone while the speaker played a test tone. The Era 300, though, can use its built-in microphones to listen and optimize its output – that process is much simpler and faster than the old technique, and Android users aren’t left out either.

I’ve been extremely happy with Trueplay’s results in the past, so I’d recommend that everyone try this out. That said, I did find that the old, manual tuning process yielded slightly better results. So while I appreciate the ease of use in the new Trueplay system, I’ll probably still walk around my room waving my phone – but I won’t judge you if you take the easier route.

If you like using voice controls, you can also add a voice assistant to the Era 300. Amazon’s Alexa has been supported since the One launched back in 2017, and last year Sonos added its own music-focused assistant. Setting up the Sonos assistant is a little easier than Alexa, because you don’t need to go linking your Amazon account, but both are pretty straightforward at this point. One thing to note: past Sonos speakers with microphones also worked with Google Assistant, but that’s no longer the case. The Era 100 only works with Alexa and the Sonos assistant, likely due to the ongoing patent battles between Google and Sonos. I personally prefer Google Assistant over Alexa, so this is a bit of a bummer. But I also mostly just talk to my speaker to play music, so the Sonos option works well enough.