Sonos Era 100 and Era 300: New Speakers, New (*100*)

Sonos introduced two new wi-fi audio system in the present day that, each actually and figuratively, denote the beginning of a brand new period for the corporate. Until now Sonos has been concentrating its latest efforts on its vary of soundbars. (And let’s be trustworthy: Arc, Beam Gen 2 and Ray are all a few of the finest pound-for-pound soundbars round.) 

With the announcement of the brand new Era 100 and Era 300 audio system, although, Sonos has turned its consideration again to music—and is, for the primary time, embracing applied sciences each leading edge and long-since established. It can also be sadly abandoning its fabulously clear and concise naming system for, properly, one thing else.

The Era 300, costing $449 (£449), is the larger, extra lavishly specified and dearer of the 2 new merchandise. Sonos describes it as being formed like an hourglass—this appears believable in the event you squint, however to us it seems just a little extra natural. Imagine a portion of a segmented insect, or a wi-fi speaker as imagined by H.R. Giger. If you had been being unkind, you would possibly say the 300 had a whiff of ass about it, even.

The Era 300 is meant to ship spatial audio sound. Currently it’s restricted to dealing with Dolby Atmos content material streamed from Amazon Music Unlimited through Wi-Fi—which is dangerous information for these of us who wish to get their Dolby Atmos jollies from Apple Music or Tidal, and even much less useful for many who really feel Sony’s 360 Reality Audio is the superior spatial audio format. Still, if the previous is something to go by, Sonos will deliver different providers and codecs into the fold finally.   

The Era 300 is fitted with a complete of six speaker drivers, every powered by a discrete block of Class D amplification. Sonos being Sonos, the particular quantity of energy, together with the scale and composition of the drivers, is privileged info—however there are some things we do know: A mid/treble driver faces ahead, two extra mid/treble drivers hearth from the edges of the cupboard to create some stereo width, and a horn-loaded tweeter is directed upward in an effort to ship the sonic top that’s a vital on the record of Dolby Atmos audio priorities. 

A pair of low-frequency woofers face left and proper, and their job is to offer the required wallop and punch to the sound. All six drivers sit behind rigorously designed waveguides, in an effort to unfold sound as vast as potential and to scale back the impression of a sonic “point source.”