Sonos has introduced two new connected speakers, a small Era 100 and a larger Era 300, that support spatial audio.
We’ve been waiting for it for several months, it’s finally done: Sonos unveiled its new connected speakers, the Sonos Era 100 and Sonos Era 300, on Tuesday.
These are two speakers with a revised architecture to complete the current range of the American manufacturer. Thus, if the Sonos Era 100 replaces the Sonos One launched in 2017, the Sonos Era 300 offers a new design with differentiated positioning and 3D sound thanks to Dolby Atmos.
A Sonos Era 100 to replace the Sonos One
The Sonos Era 100 therefore offers a size quite similar to that of the Sonos One, although a little taller, with dimensions of 183 x 120 x 131 mm. It is a speaker with three class D amplifiers accompanied by two stereo tweeters for treble and a mid woofer responsible for its part of bass and midrange. The speaker also takes advantage of multiple microphones to better capture your voice, especially with the Amazon Alexa assistant.
On the connectivity side, in addition to the Wi-Fi connection, classic for Sonos speakers, the Sonos Era 100 is also compatible with Bluetooth. It also has a USB-C socket that will allow you to connect it, using a dedicated adapter, to a wired source, for example a vinyl record player. The speaker is not a nomad speaker and therefore does not benefit from a battery.
Joins Sonos Era 300 Dolby Atmos compatible
For its part, the Sonos Era 300 stands out for its even more advanced acoustic solution. The enclosure benefits from six amplifiers in charge of feeding four tweeters for the treble and midrange and two boxes for the bass.
We are dealing here with a stereo architecture with good separation of the left and right channels. Above all, the speaker supports the Dolby Atmos protocol for music and will allow you to play songs in 3D audio. It’s a shame, however, that this support for the Dolby standard is only offered on Amazon Music, and not on Tidal and Apple Music, which also support Dolby Atmos. Thus, the speaker is positioned as a direct competitor to the Apple HomePod 2 released a few weeks earlier. We will also find the same connectivity as in the most compact model and identical functions.
Better compatibility with Android smartphones
Among these features, Sonos has also opened up its ecosystem a bit more to Android smartphone users. Until now, the manufacturer required using an iPhone to calibrate the sound of the speakers in a room, due to the calibrated microphones of Apple smartphones. From now on, Android smartphone users will also be able to perform this calibration, not through their phone’s microphones, but using the ones built directly into the speakers.
The new Sonos speakers will be commercially available starting March 28. They will be offered in two colors, black or white, with recycled plastic. The Sonos Era 100 will be offered in France at a price of 229 euros while the Sonos Era 300 will be on display at 499 euros. Until then, you can find our hands-on Sonos Era 100 and Era 300.
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