Pros: •Detailed sound quality •Balanced sound signature •High-quality build materials •Comfortable fit •Wide compatibility •Excellent midrange clarity •Precise imaging and soundstage •Ergonomic design for long listening sessions •Includes a high-quality stock cable •Suitable for a wide range of music genres •Good value for money Cons: •May not satisfy bass enthusiasts ("bass heads") •Bright source equipment can sometimes be incompatible •Limited availability of interchangeable cable terminations
View MoreSpatial audio has excited the audio market ever since Apple announced movie and TV content supporting it in iOS 14 at the WWDC event in June 2020. Spatial audio essentially delivers surround sound and 3D audio through headphones via dynamic head tracking. Typically, it’s not a feature found in traditional audio speakers. Over the past two decades since its founding in 2002, Sonos has built an enviable premium audio brand for multi-room audio products. Though the smart speaker market is crowded — even at the high end — Sonos has been able to pull off something that few brands haven’t succeeded in with solutions that customers are willing to pay a premium for and fierce brand loyalty. With that as a backdrop, Sonos has mainly concentrated its efforts on two product categories over the past few years: portable speakers like the Move and Roam; and more expensive home theater products like the Atmos-capable Arc and Ray soundbars. Sonos One and Sonos Five, the company’s primary set of music-focused speakers, still sound terrific but are beginning to show their age. Spatial Audio Capability The Era 100 and Era 300, Sonos’ two new “better and best” offerings, change that dynamic. Priced at $450, the Era 300 is the first Sonos speaker capable of playing spatial audio. In comparison, the $250 Era 100 is a wholly rebuilt successor to the Sonos One with several upgrades over its predecessor. You can use a pair of any of them in stereo or as back surround speakers in a home theater setup, as you can with other Sonos speakers. If you have a Sonos Arc or gen-2 Beam and Sub, you can have an outrageous 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos experience by adding a pair of Era 300s as your rear surrounds — that is, as long as you’re prepared to cough up $2,600 for that setup.
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