Sonos Era 300 review: Super spatial audio speaker

Multi-room audio has become something of a normality these days. There are now a number of manufacturers offering it, from Amazon’s Echo range to Apple’s HomePod, but Sonos was doing it long before anyone else. With two decades of experience filling homes with music, the company has a vast portfolio.

The Era 100 marks the entry point to the wired speaker options from Sonos, while the Sonos Five occupies the top-end. In the middle – and delivering quite a different proposition to the Era 100 and Sonos Five – is the Era 300. With a standout design alongside exceptional sound, is the Era 300 the Sonos speaker to buy? I’ve had it in my home since it launched in March 2023. Here’s what it does well, and the few things it could do better.

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The Disconnekt Downlow

The Sonos Era 300 is an excellent speaker, whether you are someone already invested in the Sonos ecosystem or you’re just looking for a top-tier standalone speaker. Its unique design sets it apart from other speakers in the market – including spatial audio compatible ones – while its combination of performance and features make it an incredibly compelling choice.

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The reasons you should choose Sonos Era 300

There’s no denying the Sonos Era 300 has a distinctive design and while it’s a divisive one, I’m all for different, especially when it comes to speakers where differentiation is limited. Characterised by an oval front section that tapers towards the rear before widening again, the Era 300 is certainly a departure from traditional speaker design, as well as unique within the Sonos line-up. 

It shares some features with other Sonos speakers of course, predominately the Era 100 – the polycarbonate grille, black and white colour options and volume control trough – but its overall look and shape aren’t like anything else. Modern, sophisticated and visually striking, the Era 300 looks fabulous on display in a living room or bedroom, but the design is functional too with Sonos having opted for the figure of eight shape specifically to cater for the acoustic architecture.

It’s here that is perhaps the biggest reason to choose the Sonos Era 300 – it sounds incredible. Equipped with six class-D drivers, four tweeters and two woofers, along with custom wave guides, it delivers balanced and detailed sound across a range of genres, from Taylor Swift to The Beatles. You get crisp vocals, impactful bass and wide soundstages, with the Era 300 excelling in reproducing audio with clarity and precision to make almost all tracks sound excellent. It’s on the bassy side, like all Sonos speakers but it’s brilliant.

Its spatial audio capabilities, delivered thanks to directional horns and up-firing tweeters, offer an immersive listening experience from a single box. You will need to be listening to Dolby Atmos or spatial audio content from a compatible streaming service for the full experience, but find a track like Space Ghost Coast to Coast by Glass Animals and the Era 300 absolutely shines.

It doesn’t disappoint in terms of features either. All the usual Sonos system features are on board – which I will go into more detail on in a minute – but the Era 300 is also equipped with Bluetooth connectivity, which is a feature less common in wired speakers from Sonos. The Era 300 and the Era 100 were the first wired speakers from the company to introduce Bluetooth so it’s something of a novelty for Sonos fans. It means you have the flexibility to use the Era 300 as a traditional Bluetooth speaker as well as part of a Sonos system. Bluetooth mode is quick and easy, with a simple press of the button on the rear, and Apple’s AirPlay 2 and Spotify Connect are also supported, so there are plenty of ways to get music playing from this speaker in your home.

As with all Sonos speakers, the Era 300 offers comprehensive compatibility with various music services from Apple Music and Spotify to the likes of Tidal and Amazon Music, so there is no shortage of music, podcasts and radio stations available. Elsewhere, and arguably most notably, the Era 300 supports Sonos Voice Control and Amazon Alexa integration. 

Sonos Voice Control means you can use your voice to increase the volume, play a track or group the Era 300 with another Sonos speaker. The capacitive controls on the top allow for easy control too – more so than older Sonos speakers thanks to the volume trough being separate to fast forward and rewind – but voice control is a handy addition. Alexa meanwhile, allows you to control smart home devices through the Era 300, as you might with an Echo speaker like the Echo Show 8 for example, as well as find out the weather, or add to your shopping list. If you don’t want either, there is a capacitive control to turn the microphones off at the top, as well as a hardware one on the back.

Last but not least, the Era 300 has a USB-C line in port, which will allow you to connect an external source, like a turntable, if you use the Line-In Adapter. Before the Era 100 and Era 300, only the larger and more expensive Sonos Five offered line in capabilities.

What the Sonos Era 300 could do better

The Sonos Era 300’s unique design is exactly that, unique. It means that while I love it, it might not be everyone’s cup of tea. Other speakers in the Sonos line up are more conventional shall we say, with the Era 100 and Sonos Five blending into the home far more seamlessly. They don’t sound as good as the Era 300 does and let’s be honest, you don’t buy a speaker to look at it, but it’s still a consideration.

The Era 300 is also quite expensive. It’s considerably more than Apple’s HomePod (2nd generation) and Amazon’s Echo Studio, both of which offer spatial audio and Dolby Atmos support.

There’s also a smart assistant missing. When Sonos launched the Sonos One back in 2017, it was a big deal because it was the first time both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant had been offered on a single speaker. You had to pick between them, so you couldn’t choose to say “Hey Google, what’s the weather like” one day and ask Alexa the next (unless you swapped), but it was still great to have the option of both. With the launch of the Era 100 and Era 300, Google Assistant was removed as an option altogether due to some legal drama, which is a shame for us as end users, especially those accustomed to using Google’s ecosystem.

It’s also worth noting that the Era 300 doesn’t offer an Ethernet port as many other previous Sonos speakers have done. This has never been an issue for me (and I wouldn’t say my Wi-Fi is superb either), but if you have particularly unstable Wi-Fi, an Ethernet port allows for more network connectivity options and ensures a reliable audio streaming experience. You can use the Sonos Combo Adapter and plug it into the USB-C port, but it’s a little more complicated than it has been in the past.

The only other things I have to complain about when it comes to the Era 300 is the power wire comes directly out of the back rather than being hidden at the bottom like the Era 100 – minor but a bit annoying depending on where you place your Era 300 speaker. You also can’t use the Sonos app when you aren’t connected to the same Wi-Fi network as your Sonos speaker, which can be irritating.

The Sonos ecosystem

That leads me nicely onto the Sonos system and the Sonos app. The Sonos app has in fact gone through a significant redesign since the Era 300 launched, with Sonos moving from five tabs across the bottom of the app to one home screen. It’s designed to make everything easier to access, from content to controls, though you still can’t control your Sonos system unless you are on your home Wi-Fi network. 

Sure, when you aren’t at home, you might wonder whether you need to control your speakers and system, but there are a couple of reasons why you might – putting on music for your dog for example. You can use the redesigned web app from any browser and from wherever you are, but that’s a lot more effort than pulling your phone out of your pocket.

The Sonos system and features offered are excellent overall however. From adjusting EQ levels for each Sonos speaker to setting up stereo pairing with two identical Sonos speakers, or a Sonos speaker and an SL model of it, everything is easy to access. 

The support for various services goes far and wide too, with plenty of more niche services alongside the mainstream options, and grouping Sonos speakers so you get music playing in all rooms of your home simultaneously is lovely and simple as well.

If you have a Sonos soundbar, like the Sonos Arc or Sonos Beam, there are also features like Speech Enhancement, while Sonos offers a feature called Trueplay to enable speakers to adjust to their environments and sound better. Advanced Trueplay tuning requires an Apple device – an iPad or iPhone – but the Era 300 and Era 100 also offer a quick version of this software feature by using the microphones on board to adjust the sound based on the room.

Should you buy the Sonos Era 300?

The Sonos Era 300 is an excellent speaker, whether you are someone already invested in the Sonos ecosystem or you’re just looking for a top-tier standalone speaker. Its unique design sets it apart from other speakers in the market – including spatial audio and Dolby Atmos compatible ones – while its combination of performance and features make it an incredibly compelling choice.

It’s expensive and the lack of Google Assistant is a shame considering that was something Sonos previously offered, but there’s plenty on offer here that justifies the price and forgives any of the very minor grievances. If you’re looking for a speaker that will blow your socks off, and offers a striking design and range of useful features while doing it, the Sonos Era 300 is in a league of its own.

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