“Sonos Era 300 Review: Legit Smart Speaker or Hyped? Exposed!”

Introduction

I’m just going to come out and say it: the new Sonos Era 300 smart speaker has completely blown my mind. The moment I first listened to this thing, I realized normal speakers would never sound the same again. 

Within seconds of throwing on “The Middle” by Rhys Lewis, I found myself picking out background vocal details and piano accents I’d never noticed before. It was like Rhys was performing a private concert in my living room.

Of course, I had a ton of questions running through my head while listening to this Sonos speaker. How can it place sounds so precisely around a room? Why do some tracks sound so much more immersive than others? Is the Era 300 all style with no substance?

Well after five months of testing, I can definitively say this speaker delivers substance to match the style. In this article, I’ll break down exactly why the Sonos Era 300 stands out for spatial audio experience, how features like Dolby Atmos support and custom speaker design make your music more enveloping, and yes…some limitations to be aware of.

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Sonos Era 300 Review

Let’s dive in and find out why I think this is one of Sonos’ most mind-blowing speakers yet…

1. Dolby Atmos Music Support

The Sonos Era 300 supports Dolby Atmos music, which is a newer, more immersive audio format developed within the past decade. Unlike old-school stereo sound formats that just have a left and right channel, Dolby Atmos is an object-based format that allows sound engineers to digitally place different elements of a track – vocals, guitars, drums, etc. – around a virtual room during mixing.

This lets you as a listener notice intricate details in the Atmos mix that might get lost in a traditional stereo track. You’ll also often notice Atmos tracks are quieter and have better dynamic range since the format requires mixes to be at -8 LKFS. 

Not all Atmos mixes are created equal though. Some early Atmos tracks drowned out vocals, but the Era 300 really shines with well-produced Atmos tracks like the ones I mentioned earlier.

2. Custom Speaker Design

The Sonos Era 300 itself is specially designed for spatial audio playback. It has one tweeter meant for clear vocals and lead instruments, left/right tweeters and woofers for stereo separation, and an upward-firing tweeter that reflects audio off your ceiling.

It also uses advanced waveguides to further enhance the placement of different track elements within your room. Together, these speaker components allow the Era 300 to create an incredibly immersive listening experience.

With deep bass, clear highs, nicely balanced mids, and that height channel, the overall sound quality is just excellent. And you can take it even further by pairing the Era 300 with a Sonos Soundbar for thunderous bass.

3. Using It With Your Home Theater

Now, you may know Dolby Atmos from surround sound systems and home theaters. And yes, you can actually use a pair of Sonos Era 300’s as rear surrounds with a Sonos Arc soundbar for an immersive Dolby Atmos movie and music setup.

However, you cannot use the Era 300s as front left/right speakers with a TV. They’re designed solely for music playback.

4. Speaker Placement Matters

To get the most immersive experience from the Era 300, speaker placement is crucial. For the best spatial audio effect, you’ll want the speaker on a table in the center of the room with plenty of space around it. 

This allows the Era 300 to properly place sounds around your space so vocals, instruments and effects seem like they’re coming at you from all directions. It’s a pretty unique and enthralling listening experience thanks to that Dolby Atmos height channel. 

5. New Physical Controls

In terms of controls, the Era 300 introduces redesigned buttons including a new indented volume strip that feels great to adjust.

You also get the usual play/pause, track skip, and voice assistant buttons.

Speaking of mics, there’s also a handy physical mic mute switch to completely disable the mics when you don’t need the voice assistant features.

6. Voice Assistant Support

On the voice assistant front, like the Sonos Move and Sonos Era 100, the Sonos Era 300 supports Amazon Alexa and Sonos Voice Control. However, it lacks support for the Google Assistant which is disappointing.

But in my testing Alexa and Sonos Voice Control worked quite well. Voice commands are processed quickly and the mics perform well.

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Other Handy Features

Some other things I love about the Sonos ecosystem that also apply to the Era 300:

• Group playback with other Sonos speakers
• The Trueplay room tuning feature optimizes sound for your space
• An adjustable EQ to tweak treble, bass etc. unlike the HomePod
• It even supports a line-in adapter over USB-C for connecting turntables and playing vinyl wirelessly across Sonos
• Bluetooth support lets you play music from your phone

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Downsides To Be Aware Of

Now even as much as I love this speaker, the Sonos Era 300 does come with some downsides to be aware of.

• First off, regular stereo tracks don’t sound nearly as good as Dolby Atmos tracks on the Era 300. Non-Atmos music gets projected from the sides more instead of the front center which you’d typically want.
• Also streaming services support for Atmos is still limited. Right now Amazon Music and Apple Music work well, but not YouTube Music or Spotify yet.
• And even with the services that do support Atmos, you have to use the Sonos app specifically. You can’t AirPlay Atmos tracks from an iPhone to the Era 300 for example.
• There are also some minor software quirks I noticed like music pausing for longer than expected when transferring playback from another Sonos speaker using the handy proximity pairing feature.
• Additionally, when using two Era 300s as surround speakers, the front-facing tweeter gets disabled which may disappoint surround sound enthusiasts swapping out their Sonos Ones.

So there are still some gaps that need to be addressed on both Sonos and the streaming services’ part before spatial audio can really take over. But overall…

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