Sonos Ushers in a New Era With the Exciting Era 100 and Era 300 Speakers
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Sonos One has been a mainstay of the Sonos range for ten years. It offered wireless sound and connecting speakers in the home long before other companies stepped in. Over time, however, competitors have made noticeable inroads on Sonos and have surpassed it in functionality and sound. This forced Sonos to respond, and we can now welcome two new speakers, the Sonos Era 100 and Era 300.
The Sonos One is coming to an end, to be replaced by the Era 100
In terms of Sonos’ portfolio, the biggest hit to the range is the discontinuation of the Sonos One, which the new Era 100 wireless speaker will replace. On a similar footprint but with a higher height, you now get an improved speaker with a larger mid-bass transducer and, most importantly, two side-facing tweeter drivers for better coverage of higher frequencies and a slight hint of space when using just one speaker.
Above all, though, the Era 100 finally adds Bluetooth support and direct line-level analogue audio input, either of those only via an additional 3.5mm to USB-C reduction. This USB-C will eventually serve for wired LAN, also via an adapter. Given the support for faster Wi-Fi standards, we’re not surprised to see the abandonment of a separate LAN connector.
The Era 100 further modifies the touch controls on the top, where you’ll find a clearer volume control bar and more clearly labelled touchpads. Sonos’ controls are already easy to use but don’t feel intuitive at first touch. That should change. Another big change is the built-in Trueplay, which you can now run on Android.
Trueplay uses microphones to detect the room's sound character and adjust the speaker's sound settings accordingly. Tuning audio using the microphone on your mobile phone will remain the domain of Apple devices only, but you’ll now be able to run Trueplay directly on your speakers from the Android app.
Improved microphones on the Era 100 can better analyze room sound and adjust the sound presentation. Similar automatic Trueplay is already offered by the Sonos Move and Sonos Roam, portable speakers, and you’ll notice the difference when you hide the speaker on a shelf, for example.
After a while, it compensates for the awkward acoustics of a cramped space. Pricing-wise, the Era 100 will be very close to the Sonos One, or slightly above it, as it is now going on sale. Due to the Sonos One being phased out, it makes sense that the cheapest Sonos One SL without voice assistants, which is often used for rear speakers in soundbars, could equally disappear over time and be replaced by the cheaper “Era 100 SL”.
So far, Sonos has been silent on something like that, so we have yet to determine when that might happen. We were able to listen to the Sonos Era 100 briefly before its launch, and while it sounds better than the Sonos One, we don’t think existing Sonos One owners necessarily need to upgrade.
This is especially true when using the Sonos One in a stereo pair and as rear effect speakers for a soundbar. For newcomers, though, it adds much-needed features that you expect in a wireless network speaker.
The Era 300 will also offer an Atmos experience on its own
While the Era 100 is the spiritual successor to the Sonos Play:1, the Era 300 is the follow-up to the now-forgotten Sonos Play:3 — a mid-range “kinda better” speaker. It will therefore occupy the space between today’s Sonos One and Sonos Five in the Sonos line-up.
Like the Era 100, the Era 300 supports line-in audio or LAN input via the USB-C connector, can tune itself via Trueplay, and has more precise modified touch controls. Above all, though, it offers significantly more internal drivers that not only take care of a better hint of stereo sound but, thanks to the upward-sloping drivers, also dare to deliver Dolby Atmos surround sound from the top (you need a subscription to say, Amazon Music with Dolby Atmos music).
So you can fill a room with sound from a single compact speaker better than many basic soundbars. We heard the Era 300 on its own and paired with the Sonos Arc in the back, and the sound was undoubtedly better than the Sonos One in the same role. But the Era 300 is not meant to replace a soundbar. You won’t find an HDMI input here, and even the analogue line-in suffers from the significant audio delay we’ve criticised with the Sonos Five and Play:5, respectively.
So don’t connect the Era 100 or Era 300 speakers analogue to your TV or computer. The sound is unusably and unrecoverably offset compared to the picture. Like other Sonos speakers, however, you can pair the Era 300 with another speaker of the same size for a more extended space, and you can likewise use the Era 300 paired as rear effect speakers. Paired with Sonos Arc and Sonos Beam Gen 2 soundbars, you get a much better Dolby Atmos to-surround experience.
In the case of the Beam, which doesn’t have upward-facing transducers, you’ll finally hear something “from above”. In the case of the Arco, which can play by bouncing off the ceiling, the localization of sound in space is greatly improved. No longer will it just be “raining from above”, but you’ll be able to discern where on the top side that sound source is.
Because the Sonos Play:3 disappeared from the lineup years ago, the Era 300 doesn’t replace any particular product within Sonos’ pricing structure. Price-wise, however, it will occupy the middle of the range, where the Sonos Beam or Sonos Sub Mini are today.
So if you want to squeeze significantly more intense surround sound out of your Sonos Arc soundbar, a pair of Era 300 rear effects will set you back practically the price of another Sonos Arc. Add to that a Sonos Sub subwoofer, which Sonos also lets you pair for extra-thick bass, and the total cost of a Sonos home theatre can climb high.
We’d recommend the Era 300 as a great-sounding entry into the Sonos world. Even a single speaker alone can provide a more enjoyable audio experience than a pair of basic, cheaper speakers in a stereo pair. Maybe not as distinct as a stereo space, but the character of the sound gives a more confident impression.
But the Sonos Era 300 will be especially appreciated by discerning customers looking for the best surround sound for movies. Many competitors offer rear-effect speakers with upward-sloping transducers for better Dolby Atmos sound. So those who want the best at any price will finally be able to find a suitable set-up in the Sonos range.
A pair for a new era
So of the pair of new speakers, Sonos missed out on the most in the range: the Era 300. The latter realistically take Sonos into a new era, creating a better audio experience. In contrast, the Era 100 feels more like a must-have upgrade to the venerable Sonos One.
It finally gets Bluetooth and sounds better, but the analogue audio input only through an aftermarket reducer and, with a significant delay, unfortunately, feels like a giveaway.
But for connection to a turntable, for example, we will finally be able to use a pair of cheaper speakers at Sonos and not the sensibly expensive pair of Sonos Five, which so far was the only one to offer a line-in audio input.
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