Sonos Era 300 initial review: Standalone spatial audio

pocket-lint.com:

A couple of years back, we said there was a great argument for Sonos updating the old Play:3 but when the Beam arrived, followed by the Move, the argument for a straight-up replacement of the living room speaker dwindled slightly, much to our disappointment.

That's all about to change though and — finally — there is now a solid substitute for the Play:3. The Sonos Era 300 is one of two speakers within the new Era range, which will sit alongside the Sonos Five, soundbars and the portable speakers Roam and Move.

While the Sonos Era 100 directly replaces the Sonos One, the Sonos Era 300 simply joins the Sonos portfolio, which in our mind makes it the new Play:3 but with some great new tricks up its sleeve, like Dolby Atmos and spatial audio.

Here are our first impressions.

The Sonos Era 300 has a unique design. Some will love it, others might not be so sure, but you can't deny it's different and we love a bit of different. It's not just about what it looks like though. From what we have heard so far, the Era 300 sounds great and it's packed full of features, including Bluetooth and Dolby Atmos support.

The Sonos Era 300 is definitely not traditional in its design. It's got a pretty unique shape, which is a result of the company designing the speaker casing around the acoustic architecture rather than the other way around.

The front section of the Era 300 is oval in its shape and there is a speaker grille on the front with the Sonos tag in the middle. The top of the front meanwhile, is a smooth environmentally-friendly polycarbonate with controls that include play/pause and skip and rewind, along with a new trough that allows for volume control, like the Sonos Era 100 also has.

The front section of the Era 300 — which makes