Sonos products are quite an experience that is enjoyed from the first moment you try to open the box in which the speaker comes. The care that permeates the brand is felt even in the packaging, where cardboard tabs that seem mechanical keep the box that keeps the product perfectly packaged closed. and there it begins the new experience.
When the sound surrounds you
new Sonos Era 300 They mark, as their name indicates, a new era. The brand because it presents a new technical leap at the sound level, with a set of speakers facing almost all directions with which to achieve the spatial audio effect that is promoted so much today.
And the technology works. After an extremely simple calibration that can be done in quick or advanced mode (in which you will have to walk around the room with your mobile phone), the speaker will automatically configure itself to sound perfect in the conditions set by the room. This calibration was already present in previous models of the brand, although this time a faster and quite effective one is included with which the speaker takes care of everything.
After completing this step, the ending melody will travel to the corners of the room, and you will feel that the sound has indeed expanded without knowing exactly where the wave originally came from.
Everywhere and to the ceiling
They are to blame for the sound reaching everywhere a total of 6 speakers, four of them tweeters and two woofers for low frequencies. The tweeters each point in a specific direction: front, left, right, and up. The woofers are facing one to the left and one to the right.
Believe it or not, there is no rear-facing speaker, despite product design encouraging one to think so. For this reason, placing the speaker facing a wall may be a good idea, as sound projection will be done quite well, especially with the speaker pointed at the ceiling.
Always connected
A Sonos speaker needs only a power cord to function and a network WiFi to make it available wirelessly, however, the new Era 300 also offers the ability to connect devices Bluetooth directly. This is really interesting, since once the device is paired, we can carry the playback through other Sonos speakers over the WiFi network, so the sound from any Bluetooth-enabled device could play throughout the house if you have more Sonos. In other words, this Era 300 would act as a bridge to bring Bluetooth audio to more corners of the house through the Sonos network.
The most demanding will also have the option of using the wired option via USB-C port which is included in the back, since with the corresponding adapter (the official one will not be available until June), we will be able to have a mini jack line input in which to connect analog audio from, for example, a record player.
No matter where the music comes from
With all the connectivity options available, you won't have a problem bringing audio from many devices to the Sonos speaker, but you won't be short of streaming options either, as it's compatible with most audio streaming services, being able to browse the contents of all of them at the same time from the official Sonos application.
As if that were not enough, the wizard is also included. Integrated Alexa, so once you activate it, it will be available for you to ask for everything you want with a simple voice command.
An ecosystem designed to grow
The construction quality of Sonos equipment makes the price of its products somewhat high, however, we are talking about sound equipment that is practically for life. For this reason, the ecosystem is so scalable, since you can start with a team and later buy new units with which to cover the entire house or create a home theater system. And it is that combined with another Era 300 and a second generation Arc or Beam, you could give life to a completely wireless surround system with Dolby Atmos technology.
Two Era 300s can create a stereo system with Atmos, or you can also use those two speakers with the floor stand to set them up as rear speakers.
Worth?
After testing the Era 300 for a few weeks, we can only say that we are before a perfect product for sound lovers. It is one of the most complete and powerful speakers in the Sonos catalog, and the incorporation of Dolby Atmos makes for a truly striking sound experience, both for listening to music and for watching movies.
The sound quality stands out for the absence of distortion at a fairly high volume, since both voices and treble sounds are perfectly maintained even with the volume at outrageous levels. We are facing a quite important generational leap, since with the connectivity options and spatial audio, we are going to have a speaker for many years.