Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Is Sonos’ Era 300 the future of speakers?”.
Okay, it’s really happening. These are the latest smart speakers from Sonos, the era 300 and the era 100.. If you’ve been following my work at The Verge lately, you’ve known these have been on the way since August and a few weeks ago we spilled the full details. Today, Sonos is finally announcing them.
You can order both ear speakers starting now and they’ll, be in stores on March 28th, so we already knew a lot about them, but now we’ve gotten a chance to see and hear the 300 and 100 in person. It’S a big moment for the company and I think Sonos fans have a lot to be excited about. Okay, let’s start with the era 100, which costs 249. Sono sees this as a remaster of the Sonos one. This is the speaker you buy for someone who just wants the nice thing.
That sounds surprisingly good. The 100 has a similar overall size, but it’s more rounded. Now inside there are two tweeters instead of just one, so it’s now capable of playing proper stereo sound. It’S still one speaker so don’t expect much separation, but at least you’re getting left and right channels and not losing anything in the mix.
Sonos has also made the midwifer larger for more powerful bass response across the volume range. Speaking of the controls have also been changed up a bit. There’S a new indent for volume controls.
You can tap a finger on either side or swipe across to adjust, so the sound quality has improved, but I’m more excited that the era 100 just does new things. Sonos has added Bluetooth and line in to both era speakers and the Sonos one didn’t do any of that. In fact, Sonos used to make fun of Bluetooth and ads that showed music being interrupted by phone notification.
So, on from what CEO Patrick Spence told me times have changed, I think the technologies have evolved in such a way that we can provide the experience that we want to and so bluetooth’s gotten much more reliable, really on the line in one of the things has Been the prevalence of turntables and the Resurgence of vinyl and a lot of people asking us hey, I want to plug it in. You know to my Sonos speaker and so we’re like. Okay, like this is a real thing happening.
We’Ve heard from a lot of customers on so, let’s figure out a way to give them that choice. Then we come to the ERA 300.. This new speaker is built from the ground up for spatial audio.
Just look at this thing: it costs 449 and has a design, unlike any of sonos’s previous speakers. Sonos describes it as an hourglass shape and opinions online have been pretty mixed, but this is a case where Sonos prioritized function over form. There are six drivers inside that direct sound forward, left right and up. We use the term room filling sound, a lot when talking about speakers, but in this case yeah it’s legit by itself.
One era 300 can play spatial audio from Amazon, Music, Unlimited and Sonos does. Support for Apple music’s Atmos tracks are coming this spring now. You’Ve heard the hype a lot, but we’re still in the early days of spatial audio music. You know that whole transition from mono to stereo – you know, took years right and – and this will be the same where you know not everybody’s going to switch overnight – there will be strong opinions on either side of the equation of you know of the you know, of Of the way they experience it, but we think it is the future.
So in that sense, the era 300’s funky design is necessary to get the most out of spatial audio from a single speaker. That’S according to Giles Martin, who is sonos’s head of sound experience and he took a little shot at the homepod while talk through sonos’s reasoning. Space Studio has to be forward-facing and immersive and if, by the functional performance Phil of the speaker, it is forward facing immersive. First, to a a circular object, which which will just Fire audio in all directions, the that’s not how we listen to music, you know, even a performance is in front of you, so there’s a reason why it’s we’ve gone down.
Our route thing is a lot of early Dolby Atmos song mixes as well. They suck you can find some great ones here and there, but ninety percent of the time stereo is still the way to go. So as an industry, everybody has to move forward together. Device makers, record producers and so on before this format can truly stand on its own Sono says it’s giving out era 300s to music producers and Studios.
So they can hear music. How you’ll hear it when you have one at home now, nilai had a long chat about spatial audio with Patrick and Giles so be sure to check that out and Sonos will be keeping the Sonos 5 around for people who prefer the highest Fidelity stereo experience that Speaker still gets louder and kicks out more bass than either of these two, but the era 300 isn’t just about music. It’S also built for home, theater and owners of the Sonos Arc. If you’re willing to Fork out 900 for two of them, you can use a pair as rear surrounds and since they fire sound in several directions, you’re getting a more immersive Atmos audio behind you than from any other Sonos speaker, but 900 is a lot of money.
Sonos also just raised the price of its mid-level beam, sound bar at 4.99, just like all Tech Brands. Nowadays, Sonos is putting a bigger emphasis on repairability with both era speakers. They use more recycled materials and screws in place of glue and adhesives. So that’s one important step, but what about selling parts and people do their own repairs? We pack a lot in there in a lot in a tight space, and so it’s it’s the Practical reality of how do you balance those two things of making it easily repairable? But at the same time you know you want to be able to make kind of the tightest form factors you can and use that air in a smart way, but uh, no, you know, there’s no religious debate about it. It’S more. Can we practically do something like that? Yeah turns out there’s a very active Sonos community on Reddit, so I turned there for a few questions. Some people worried about planned obsolescence of their old speakers now that Sonos has new ones coming. So I asked Patrick whether to play One play three and play five still have years and years of life left in them back when we started the company you know, and we were, we were passionate about building products that would last for a long long time. But you know nobody could see 15 years into the future or any of those things, and now we’re 20 years into the future. But you now see us as well incorporating things like Bluetooth and other Technologies like line in which also you know, will help support and future proof.
There were others who were disappointed that Sonos didn’t build up fire Atmos drivers into the era 100 and according to Giles. Martin, they never even tested such an idea for the air 100. It is a single box stereo unit and we’re honest about what it does. Okay, we’re not going to say it does special because it doesn’t do specialty we’re not a brand on it. So does spatial audio um or attempt virtualization, because it is, we are our key thing when it comes to audio, is honesty. Many of you asked why a sound bar always has to be the front fixture of every single Sonos home theater setup.
Why not? Let people use two era: 300s, as dedicated left and right front speakers yeah. I mean we thought about that. Quite often this fit and form you know: people don’t have people don’t have space next to their televisions and right now we have three incredible sound bars that that fit that purpose and they do provide an amazing both home, theater and Music Experience right.
Take that answer. How you will maybe it’ll happen someday, but for now it’s very clear that Sonos likes to sell sound bars and those are the era 300 and era 100 we’re going to start testing them very soon and putting them up against the homepod and other smart speakers over The next few weeks, so let me know what you’re curious about and keep it locked on the verge for more reviews and other videos. .