Sonos Era 300 Review - They're Good...But How Good?

first there was gen 1 then there was Gen 2 and now there's a new era of solos wireless speakers this is the Sonos era 300 the first of its name and my plan in this video is to trim the fat and highlight only the facts that you need to know if you're considering buying one and here's a little bit of foreshadowing for this video I do believe the solos era 300 is the missing piece of the puzzle if you want to build the ultimate Sonos home theater audio setup and I shall explain why I say that a little bit later on in the video so let's start with the all-important price it is 449 in the US 449 in the UK 499 in the rest of Europe and there will be a link in the description that will take you to the most up-to-date prices and keep an eye on that because you never know when Sonos are going to run a promo and if you're wondering about the color options it's black and white and you can buy floor stands from Sonos directly they're 150 pounds each and they are available in black or white to match the speakers and and if you want the wall mounting brackets you could buy those from Sonos 129 pounds for the pair but I do warn you you must have strong walls if you want to mount this to them because this weighs 4.4 kilograms and I always remember what they used to say when I used to work in Harris technology the heavier the speaker usually the better now let's talk about the ports and if you love minimalist Tech it really doesn't get much simpler than this on the back of the Sonos era 300 is a figure eight power input the provided cable is nicely designed so that the speaker can rest close to a wall if needed and if you're wondering about the length of the power cable in the Box it's approximately two meters and it does have a single USB C Port specifically for sonos's adapters and with the correct adapters from Sonos you can hard wire in your internet if your Wi-Fi sucks and also you can hard wire in an audio jack from a more retro audio device or a Hi-Fi DAC for example the official Sonos analog audio adapter costs 19 pounds at the time of the video and the combo one which is the one I recommend cost 39 pounds that has the ethernet and the analog Jack in one and I do believe that's the better option because you've got to remember there is only one USB C Port here so you might as well maximize its usability if you need to use it now let's talk about the onboard manual controls on the Sonos era 300 in case you need to use your hands like a caveman from the 80s like me the user interface and styling of the Sonos area is so subtle if anybody walked past this speaker they could easily Miss where the controls are all of the capacitive controls are on top with this recessed area here being the volume slider so you can slide your finger down to turn the volume down slide it up to turn the volume up and you can tap either side if you don't want to do the slide action play pause skip forward and back buttons have their own individual placements and you'll notice the button here labeled with a speech bubble this summons your AI if you don't feel like using your voice to wake it and if you're wondering what these four dots are these are the beam forming mics so that your virtual assistant can hear you now I know what you're thinking what if I don't want AI listening for Wake words 24 7 on the speaker what if I want my privacy like Prince Harry well you don't need to go on a world tour to solve that problem because there is one physical switch on the back of the Sonos era and it is the mute switch green means it's on and white means it's off and it's not listening anymore and there is only one physical button and that is a Bluetooth button and that takes me nicely on to the wireless connectivity features on the era 300. so the Bluetooth button puts it into Bluetooth pairing mode obviously and that means that pretty much anybody who comes to your house can connect to it without having to connect to your Wi-Fi so that could be good but it's not the best way to play back audio to the speaker even though it has Bluetooth 5.0 the best audio codec that it can use is Apple's AAC but honestly if you get one of these and you want the best listening experience the best audio quality then I'd recommend playing audio to it via Apple's AirPlay 2 or via your home Wi-Fi network using the app because that's the best way to get the highest audio bitrate to the speaker and also if you do it that way you don't have to worry about that Bluetooth range as well and what makes the connectivity even better on the Sonos era 300 is the fact that it does support Wi-Fi 6 but only if you have a Wi-Fi 6 modem and if you don't have one I can recommend one for you I'll link a video to it at the end of this one and if you're wondering what streaming service is the best to use with the Sonos era 300 pretty much all of the most popular streaming services are supported and will sound phenomenal here but it is Apple's music that will be the optimal service to use with this particular speaker and I will explain why in a moment so now let's run quickly through sonos's app Sonos really specializes in its ecosystems connectivity and the solos app is the Keystone for this and just like the Sonos speakers before it you can calibrate the era 300 sound signature for the space that is placed it but previously you could only calibrate this using an iOS device but now Android fans can Rejoice because Sonos is true play tuning feature is now available on all Android devices up to date Android devices If You're Still rocking a Galaxy S3 or something like that it's time to upgrade and I'm probably going to tell you something you already know but within the Sonos app you can group together speakers you can play to all the speakers in one go if you want you can adjust the eqs when it comes to bass and treble and even height with Dolby Atmos speakers and of course you have access to your streaming services without having to load up the individual apps and of course you can set up your Alexa AI or even Siri and if you do decide to set up some Ai and you don't care that much about your privacy then you can just ask the speaker to play your favorite track without ever having to lift a finger now let's talk about the design and the interesting driver placement on the Sonos era 300 so I personally love the design language here Sonos do something really special with their speakers and that's kind of bending the light to make it look like the speakers are almost floating and that's something I noticed with the Sonos Arc and we see that here in the era 300 design N2 and the shape of it kind of looks like a bell shape from certain angles and it kind of looks like an Emoji Style megaphone in a way it's Unique I've never seen another speaker like it and I do like it anyway that's just my personal opinion on the design let me know what you think of it now let's talk about the key selling points the key features that might make you want to buy this one over maybe another speaker number one is the Dolby Atmos and the spatial sound capabilities that this has and it is this that makes this speaker so impressive Standalone it sounds phenomenal and if you get a second one for a stereo pair it will sound even better and it really is the introduction of that verticality in the sound that makes the difference you could say it takes everything to the next level or you could say it takes your listening experience to new heights now listen here the Sonos era 300 Standalone is impressive it has six class D amplifiers those are electrical amplifiers one for each of its drivers and the placement of the drivers has been really well thought out by Sonos there's a woofer and a tweeter on each side there's a forward firing Tweeter with a custom Sonos waveguide in front of it and the era 300 secret weapon is this upward firing speaker which is at the base of a horn-shaped cone and that bounces sound off the ceiling and it's this that makes the difference and makes that vertical audio very present even with regular audio tracks and it sounds better if you listen to 360 reality audio but even better if you're listening to proper Dolby Atmos tracks now remember what I said about Apple music being the best streaming service to use with the Sonos era speaker well the reason for that is at present it's the only app and the only way to play authentic Dolby Atmos music to the Sonos era 300 and it can only do this if it plays it directly from the Apple music server which means you do have to do it through the app AirPlay 2 music will sound good and music plugged in through the Jack will sound good and on your network but if you want to hear the very best that this week it has to offer you will have to use apple music and that's probably why Sonos give you a three month free trial with apple music if you do buy one of these so the question that you might have now is where does the Sonos era 300 live amongst the current product lineup from Sonos that is price point it sits right between the Sonos move which is a battery operated speaker that can be carried Outdoors so that has its own unique use case and the more expensive Sonos 5 which is larger than this but at the current price point I do believe unless you absolutely need that portability that the sonus 5 gives this is the best value best sounding Sonos speaker Standalone out of the three and if you do decide to buy two and have them set up as a stereo pair the sound quality and Fidelity and South stage is enough to impress most audio but now let's go back to my foreshadowing at the beginning of the video and why I believe this might be the missing piece you've been looking for if you've been trying to build the best home theater possible with Sonos equipment let's say you're loaded and you have a bulletproof wallet like this one but with a lot more money in it this is from my new channel sponsor the ridge shout out to the ridge they make awesome wallets there'll be a link below if you want to pick one up or check out the latest prices anyway like I was saying if you're loaded or you have a bulletproof wallet you could add two Sonos era 300s to your son's Arc sound bar and use them as the rear channels and then if you add a sub to the system you will technically have a 7.1.4 surround sound system that's two upward firing speakers at the front and two behind you and that is why I believe this is the missing piece of the puzzle that you've been waiting for once you hear these you might actually start to feel that they're so good and they might be a little bit wasted as rear speakers maybe a bit too Overkill but trust me if you can afford to use them in that way and you have a big enough room to enjoy them you won't regret it and also think about all of that money you'll save on buying actual cinema tickets and extortionately priced popcorn so appreciate you guys for watching this one if you want to check out some of my other Sonos videos thumbnails are on screen right now if you want to check out our modem I mentioned the Wi-Fi six one there's a good Netgear Orbee which is also easy to recommend if you check out any of those right now I will see you in the next one don't be late okay [Music]

Channel: WhatGear

Views: 50,673

Keywords: sonos era 300, spatial audio, sonos era 300 review, era 300, apple homepod, sonos era 300 vs 100, sonos era 300 vs homepod 2, sonos era 300 surround, sonos era 300 vs sonos 5, sonos era 100 & 300, sonos era 300 stand, sonos era 300 wall mount, sonos era 300 streaming options, sonos era 300 dolby atmos

Id: 8pExpiZhPeU

Length: 11min 26sec (686 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 05 2023