Sonos enters a new era with the announcement of two new speakers
Sonos has unveiled two new wireless speakers—the Era 100 and Era 300—that aim to elevate the brand’s performance to new heights. The two new Sonos speakers will be released on March 28 and are available now for pre-order from the Sonos website, with the Sonos Era 100 priced at $249 and the Sonos Era 300 at $449.
Pre-order the Era 300 at Sonos
Pre-order the Era 100 at Sonos
The Era 100 is an improvement of and replacement for the Sonos One, while the Era 300 is a newly designed speaker that focuses on filling a room with spatial audio. Both Era 300 and Era 100 speakers pair with Sonos’ two popular soundbars—the Sonos Arc and Sonos Beam (Gen 2), both Best of Year award winners at Reviewed.
Sonos is already known for its Wi-Fi interconnectivity, but thankfully both speakers bring the addition of Bluetooth streaming to the Sonos home ecosystem (it was previously only found on the Sonos Move and Roam portable speakers). Further connectivity includes AirPlay 2 and a USB-C connector that allows for line-in connections with an additional line-in adapter.
A built-in microphone allows for Sonos Voice Control and Amazon Alexa connectivity (no Google Assistant, though). And for those with privacy concerns, there’s a hard shutoff switch on the back of the speakers that will physically disconnect the microphone so you know it isn’t listening.
Both speakers can be customized for your space with the use of Trueplay tuning. The microphone array in the speakers uses beamforming and echo-cancellation to maximize performance based on speaker placement and the room’s acoustics. The app is available for both Android and iOS.
Let’s take a closer look at what sets these new releases apart.
Sonos Era 100
When design plans started at Sonos for the next generation of speakers, engineers looked at the existing Sonos One and how they could improve on an already successful design. The Era 100 keeps the same relative footprint of the Sonos One with a little more height. Instead, the improvements are under the covers. The Era 100 has two angled tweeters for true stereo sound (up from one in the Sonos One) that have custom waveguides to disperse the sound for a wider soundstage. The woofer that handles the bass frequencies is also 25% bigger, so expect more robust bass response over the Sonos One.
Sonos Era 300
The Sonos Era 300, on the other hand, was built from the ground up with the intention of delivering impressive spatial audio. It comes in a new cinched hourglass design with six different custom drivers spreading multi-channel sound around the room. There are four tweeters—one firing forward, two out either side, and the last an up-firing one—supported by two woofers that spread sound to either side of the speaker.
As two rear speakers, the Era 300 pairs with the Arc or Beam (Gen 2) to create a 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos home theater experience without the need of additional front speakers or mounting anything on your ceiling.
Sonos consulted and worked closely with top industry professionals to tune the Era 300. Headed by Grammy Award-winning producer, songwriter, composer and Sound Experience Leader Giles Martin, the Sonos Soundboard consists of music producers including Manny Marroquin (Rihanna, John Mayer) and Nigel Godrich (Radiohead) that put the Era 300 through its paces and advised on the tuning of the speaker.
Sonos partners with Apple Music
In addition to the speaker presale, Sonos has announced a partnership with Apple Music that will add spatial audio support starting on March 28, 2023. It will be available on the new Sonos Era 300 speaker, and the Arc and the Bean (Gen 2) soundbars.
This article originally appeared on Reviewed: Sonos announces pre-sale of new Era 300 and Era 100 speakers
