- Sonos.
A very tasteful living room sound adornment.
Today, we've got the new Era 300 and 100 line.
Both Linus and I have looked at Sonos
equipment before in the past.
He's had a look at the Arc.
I think I had a look at the Beam,
but today I get to fondle the new Era 300.
Can I say fondle on ShortCircuit?
Today, I get to fondle the Era of 300s.
So we have all the colors here today.
We have both white and black,
but I think we're gonna look at the 300s.
This one's got a nice gouge in it.
We've got these cool little locking things
on the side.
You just kind of pop 'em open,
and then the top just slides right off.
That's nice.
We've got our speaker here in a nice little wrap.
Pull that open.
Oh my god, it's heavy.
(box smash)
Oh, it's not just like crappy fabric covering.
It's like this.
It's got a hem on it.
That's kind of amazing.
And they're both white. (laughs)
- [Bell] Logistics.
- Great.
This is off to a great start.
Looks like we have matching power cables there.
We have a Let's get started menu.
Looks nice.
Nice printed heavy cardboard.
So we'll leave that to reference in a bit.
Cord is, yeah.
Rubbery kind of plasticky.
A little memory, which is great.
This is pretty much the whole thing.
Metal front, which is nice metal grill,
kind of a soft touch plastic.
It's matte.
No piano black.
Thank god.
Nice big surface on the back.
Slight indent there, which is kind of tasteful.
It's a very pretty thing I would say.
Feet are rubberized, which is kind of nice.
Non-slip.
There's mounting holes on the bottom
for the wall mounts that are an optional extra.
There's also a floor stand as well.
We'll talk about that a bit later.
Controls are up here on the top.
There's a voice-assistant button,
and it looks like the little slider thing,
and some playback controls too.
And new for Sonos apparently is Bluetooth.
Yay.
I don't know.
Apparently this has always been a thing,
and they haven't really included that before.
We have a silence mute switch here
on the back for your voice assistant.
And then there's a little
USC-C cable thing there,
which we'll also talk about a bit later.
Okay.
So that's the 300, the big one.
We have a nice choice here
between white and or white.
Thanks again.
Same sort of thing.
Comes in this nice little sock.
You've got similar markings on the back,
we have our Bluetooth button.
This one's vertical which is kind of cool.
And the silence and the USB port.
And then on the bottom we have our power input,
which goes in there like me,
and the same sort of hole for your wall mounts
or stands and they come with different stands.
You have to buy different stands
if you want these and different stands
if you want this one.
This one's power cord is on the back though,
which goes like there,
which is a bit of a weird choice honestly.
You know if I'm gonna mount this
against a wall as it's supposed to be
a surround speaker,
then it's gonna be here.
Why not put it in the bottom,
and then have it route out the back like this?
I have some thoughts on that later.
Bell said he really struggled
to get this one out,
and oh my god, he is right.
This is awful.
I'm a weak little man.
There's not enough...
There's not enough room
to like get a proper grip on it.
Jesus.
Okay, there we go.
My hands are broken now.
Same sort of solid construction.
These feel really, really, really solid.
No compressibility anywhere.
Nice and metal everywhere.
There's already some like brown
or scuffing or something.
I have got dirty hands.
I just washed my hands.
Yeah, I washed my hands first time this month.
General size of these.
I think for the 100,
the size is kind of nice
just to kind of maybe have on a shelf or like
behind you somewhere.
Should be nice and easy to hide away.
The weight is really quite nice and hefty.
I'm not entirely sure if that's added in
as metal or if it's like,
just actually constructed maybe with a metal core
or something like that.
Sometimes companies will add weight
to their products to make them feel more premium.
I'm not entirely sure that's the case here.
The power cables do not want to come out.
There we go.
This one, same sort of thing.
It's rather hefty.
Maybe about what?
5, 10 pounds?
Something like that.
The construction of this also feels really good.
I can't like bend this front grill in at all.
Someone says that there's
some specialized wave guides in the front,
which have like little spiky things.
I really wanted to like rip this off,
and and demo those,
but I don't think that's gonna happen.
Some small panel gap issues
right here at the bottom.
So yeah.
I mean it's got a nice fit and finish.
I think that little panel gap thing
is a little bit problematic.
I would expect better for how much this costs.
Yeah.
Now I'm seeing it everywhere,
and the speakers ruin for me.
The shape of its shape of it's pretty nice.
A little bit fatter at the back
than the front like everybody should be.
Yeah, I think I could see this on a bookshelf
or even maybe mounted up
at the top of the ceiling
or on their stance that they do behind.
I don't think it would be too in your face.
A white is probably a little bit more pronounced
than the black, but I guess it depends
on your interior design.
Some more fun colors would've been nice too.
I probably would've bought these if they were
like bright yellow.
They might be great for bookshelf speakers,
and accent or something like that.
You could always spray paint them I guess.
The feet seem good.
Yeah, they're really rubbery.
They're like gripping really well into the table.
It's got a lot of weight on just
a little tiny footprint,
so maybe not a table speaker.
I don't know if it's more rigid than this one.
The 100s are supported completely on the bottom
so they don't move at all there.
(table shaking)
They're good.
Well let's see how these sound.
We've gotta get them hooked up
to the app but before,
we have to get you hooked up to our sponsor.
Alpaca Keyboards.
How is that for a segue?
- [Andrew] Very good.
- [Bell] Editor, leave him asking how that was.
- Stop it editor.
No.
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Okay, let's get these boys hooked up to the app.
No power button I don't think.
Oh there is a light on the front.
That's nice.
It's nice and subtle.
Might be waiting for pairing.
It would be nice if it like bonked or something.
I need to give it location permissions.
Storage.
I don't know what's going on anymore,
and we'll give it microphone.
We'll just give it everything.
Here's my social insurance number.
It's getting it ready.
It's gonna play a chime.
(machine chimes)
All right.
Connecting to the wifi.
I like that they can support 5G.
So many IoT devices these days only support 2.4.
There's an update available of course
because there has to be,
and we're getting advertisements for Dolby Atmos,
which we'll definitely be talking about
a bit later.
I'm trying to figure out,
exactly what these do
'cuz Sonos won't tell us.
Can add alarms?
We can group speakers.
We can save favorites.
We can personalize it,
and enable automatic updates.
Neat.
We'll see you in 20 minutes when this is done.
So it looks like we can set up
speaker groups and things like that
on a room basis.
So if you had these in your bedroom
or your living room
or your kitchen then they would all be kind of
different zones.
We can have a A subwoofer,
which is also a product they offer.
I believe you can have up to two
if they're the same.
And then we can also add a stereo pair.
Each pair of speakers have to be the same model.
You can't like cross-match
different models together.
We have some EQ settings.
Base, treble and a loudness toggle,
which is on by default.
True play.
which I believe is some sort of technology
to make it more acoustic.
That's kind of their version of of room tuning.
So let's give that a go.
It's gonna be loud I hope.
(machine chimes)
(upbeat instrumental music)
That was nice just from the sound of that.
It seems like it's gonna be
a nice performative speaker.
It seems to have six drivers
or something like that.
Two wolfers in the inside.
Two tweeters firing up in this direction.
Another tweeter that has a horn that kind of
fires up and then another one in the front.
So it's supposed to do all the atmos
and I think it's supposed to be three channel.
I'm not entirely sure if it's two channel
with some psychoacoustics tuning
to like use the up firing thing.
Sonos doesn't seem to actually list
how many channels these are.
They kind of avoid that in their material,
which is a little bit strange.
We also have a height audio setting,
which kind of gives me the hope
that the up firing is its own dedicated channel.
It also has a line-in,
so no ox cord on this one.
They've gone the iPhone route.
You need to buy a dongle
if you want to have line-in.
You can buy a $20 USB-C
to three and a half millimeter jack,
which plugs in right there.
Or for the low, low price of $40,
you can buy a combo jack
that has an ethernet port,
and a three and a half millimeter jack,
which is strange.
It's not like there's any room left
to have that on the back here.
I think we'll we'll get some crab rave
in this now.
(upbeat instrumental music)
So there's nothing coming out
of the front right now.
It really is just coming out of the sides.
I guess it's maybe why they're angled forward
a little bit.
So that's kind of.
That's kind of interesting.
(upbeat instrumental music)
It's half volume so let's turn it up.
Let's see.
Let's destroy our brains.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Okay, I can't.
That's extremely loud.
That is like hearing damagingly loud.
That's awesome.
No distortion whatsoever.
That's a very, very good result.
I'm quite impressed with that actually.
There's no sub in it,
and it's really quite basey as well,
which is nice.
I think if you were having this
in a home theater setup,
I would pair it with a sub but this is really
good performance already, which is good to see.
Let's listen to it like I'm actually listening
to a speaker so I'm gonna sit here.
(upbeat instrumental music)
So that sounds bad
because it's going that way.
It's not playing music at me,
which is kind of interesting.
I'm gonna go over there and listen to it
and see if it's better
'cuz I'm sitting in front of it,
and I think it's supposed to be like
a room speaker.
So goodbye.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Okay.
What I thought was gonna happen happened,
and it sounds really good
sort of around the entire room,
almost exactly the same
as if I was sitting next to it.
So this is definitely designed
as kind of a throw around the room speaker.
Sitting here is kind of not great,
but everywhere else is really quite nice.
Let's try some Dolby Atmos.
Some music.
Okay, so I'm gonna play this song,
which is on Apple Music
in a spatial audio playlist,
which is the Dolby Atmo something or other.
I hope we have that still enabled here.
Unfortunately, we'll have to dub over this
with something like smooth jazz,
but at least
I'll be able to see if the top firing tweeter,
and the front firing tweeter actually tweet.
(upbeat instrumental music)
I don't know if this is even right.
This doesn't sound like spatial music.
- [Bell] I would choose a song by The Weekend.
- Okay, yeah this says Dolby Atmos down here,
and those speakers are definitely on right now.
(upbeat instrumental music)
(video beeps)
Yeah, sounds really good now
that all the speakers are working.
I don't know why you can't just turn
the other two on when you're playing stereo music
'cuz it's one speaker,
so it's not gonna get the stereo separation.
Just play all the speakers.
I mean I'm sitting next to it,
and it's supposed to be farther away.
Maybe a little hollow in the mids
'cuz the Wolfers are trying to like compensate
with a hell lot of bass.
But yeah.
Good enough I think for a tiny little speaker.
Let's get a 100 going and compare the two.
- [Bell] My name is Dan the man,
and I'm here to say,
you should buy an Era 300 and use my promo code
down in the link in the description, today.
(upbeat instrumental music)
- This is also obscenely loud.
A little bit of distortion from the tweeter.
I think a little bit of crackling,
but no one in their goddamn right mind
would listen to music that loud.
There's also some nice air movement
from the wolfers on the side.
This one's way more directional,
kind of more facing this way.
The bass kind of propagates more from the side,
which would be good.
Send it out into the room,
and have it bounce around
where you want the tweeters
a bit more directional
than maybe the 300 provides.
Unless you really want to go crazy
with the Atmos system,
you could probably get away with this instead.
This one obviously doesn't support Dolby
because there's touch controls
at the top where there should be a speaker.
So yeah, it does have this guy angled
tweeters and one woofer.
So there's three speakers.
So this will be just a two channel
where this one is claiming possibly
a four channel maybe.
probably just a three if I'm being honest.
Let's do a stereo pair.
(dramatic instrumental music)
That was actually amazing.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Okay.
So what it's done when I've made a stereo pair,
which is kind of interesting actually,
is disabled these up firing tweeters,
and it's just playing out of the front ones now.
So now they're acting much more like
directional speakers, which is kind of clever.
I would like control over that in the app,
but removing that control simplifies it
for the end user I think.
Let's actually point them towards me
like they're supposed to be
because I'm just getting all base from the sides.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Yeah, that's great.
I mean having the mid drivers
out the side is kind of,
I guess a good idea sometimes,
depending they seem to be a little bit
lower down in the frequency range
than like a traditional woofer.
It seems to reproduce the low frequencies
better than some of maybe the high mids
but it's not to its massive detriment.
I mean I'm being very particular here.
That's certainly of an acceptable sound quality,
which is really good to see.
"Blinding Lights."
Dolby Atmos.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Atmos is really strong there.
That is actually amazing.
(upbeat instrumental music)
That's great.
That's really good.
I think that's like worth the price
of admission right there.
The atmos is where these really do shine.
Yeah, I don't know how I feel about that.
I don't like praising things
for what kind of made me feel like Gilnex,
or maybe I'm old now,
but that really doesn't prove it.
I wonder if that's because the speakers
are more tuned for Atmos
than maybe they are like normal playback.
I think maybe if we just had the stereo music
with these extra tweeters enabled,
that it would sound as good.
I don't know if our ceiling height
or even the layout here really makes
the Atmos shine, but the music sounds better.
It sounds more spacious
probably because we have some extra drivers
in play than we don't with stereo audio.
(upbeat instrumental music)
There's something I didn't mention is,
I liked the default EQ on the 300s,
which I threw on the ground.
These 100s may be a little bit are a base heavy,
probably maybe room,
but from sitting here on the desk,
negative four is a little bit more balanced.
They're kind of a bit overpowering
and the mids are kind of squashed.
So the 300s have a bit more of an even sound
than the 100s here,
but these are still quite good.
I think maybe I'm just spoiled from those 300s.
I would much rather have a pair of these
than one of those.
Definitely.
These are about half the cost of a 300.
So these Era 100s are $250 bucks each,
and so that means they're $500 for two,
and the 300 is $450 bucks.
So if you buy a pair of these,
you get a bit of a discount from them,
and you buy them individually,
and the stands for the 300s
are about $280 bucks.
So you can have a pair of stands
or like maybe one of these
for your bedroom, right?
It's kind of interesting.
And then, you know,
a $40 dongle to put on the back here.
And if we look at their exploded view,
like I think there's a whole bunch of space
in the bottom here.
So if I wanna put it on a shelf,
I can put it like that,
and if I wanna put it on a stand,
I can route the cable into the stand.
On the 100s
but I don't know, giant cable in the back?
Like it just looks gross.
Let me be able to hide it underneath
if I wanna put it on a shelf.
Or if I'm gonna wall mount it,
like I can't have it flush with the wall.
There's no reflex of the back.
It's just a little bit frustrating I think.
In that same sort of vein,
I don't understand why
I can only pair two of these.
So in each room,
you're only allowed to have one stereo pair,
which means that if I wanted to say listen
to Quadraphonic audio with four of these,
and like really experience Dolby Atmos music,
I can only get two speakers.
It's like they don't want my money.
Because we have four here,
it would be really nice to maybe have
two of these guys at the front,
and two of these behind me is maybe
some side fills.
Maybe I've got a big room,
but because it's all in one room,
I can only have one stereo pair.
Sonos can support something like,
32 active devices simultaneously.
So why can't I buy a whole bunch of these,
and have what is it?
27.10 system with 10 up firing speakers,
and you know sound everywhere.
Like Dolby Atmos is supposed to be able
to function as?
Something clearly missing from
the Sonos documentation,
at least what I could find is a clear indication
of how many channels each of these guys have.
Apparently Sonos can support 5.1 0.2
but that's kind of from what I've found
on the internet and not exactly
from their documentation.
I shouldn't have to go digging
through community forums,
and other posts and news articles
to figure out what I'm actually about to buy.
If anybody knows, please let me know.
This is kind of beyond my ability
to test here.
Labs, where are you at?
Honestly.
For the price and performance ratio,
these sound really good.
At least the 300s out of the box.
No tuning.
Nothing like that you know,
and we do the room thing.
Whatever.
It sounds great.
For $480 each,
I think I would definitely recommend
getting a pair which is even more money.
As a singular speaker,
listening to non Atmos audio,
which is gonna limit you to a lot of music, ehh.
It doesn't...
I think you can do better with a cheaper speaker
if you're getting one.
Two, spatial audio.
Even one with spatial audio.
Quite incredible.
Two is really where your money is.
I can see how great the system is
if they would implement it
a little bit differently.
It's like, it's right there.
Just have speakers as individuals,
and let people do what they want
with them and have as many as they want.
Like, do you not want our money?
Do you not want me to go out,
and buy 10 of these and put them all
around my house 'cuz I want to.
This sounded (beeps) good.
And you won't let me
because your ecosystem
doesn't function like it should.
It's sad.
It's shortsighted.
It's pathetic.
My disappointment is immeasurable,
and my day is ruined.