Sonos has been around for two decades, and in that time, the company has established itself in its own space, creating simple yet elegant audio products for home and on the go. In its journey, the company has often pushed the boundaries of technology, making efforts to continuously innovate, while also providing its customers with a premiere sound experience. Today, Sonos is introducing its new line of speakers, debuting the Era 300 and Era 100.
Sonos Era 300
The Sonos Era 300 discards the traditional speaker shape in favor of one that embraces and accentuates the audio experience. The hourglass design is modern, elegant, and most importantly, provides function, delivering audio in the most pleasing manner possible, amplifying spatial audio and enhancing the listening experience.
The exterior might look simple, but the internal component configuration being quite complex, with the Era 300 making use of six individual speakers. It packs four tweeters for high and mid-range audio, along with two woofers for the low-end output. In order to create an immersive experience, the tweeters are directed in four different directions, facing upward, forward, left, and right, while the woofers are positioned on the left and right side.
Sonos Era 100
The Sonos Era 100 is a compact speaker that packs quite a punch, featuring a unique two tweeter arrangement, with one positioned left, and the other positioned right to create a stereo audio experience from just one speaker. The tweeters cover the mid and high frequencies, a single woofer provides deep bass, covering the low frequencies.
Both speakers will make use of a new interface, giving users a more intuitive touch experience, featuring a capacitive volume slider, with buttons for play, pause, skip, and replay. In addition to the physical controls, the speakers will offer remote control connectivity through the Sonos app, along with support for voice controls. There will also be a switch to toggle the microphone on and off for added privacy.
Both speakers are tuned from the factory, but the speakers can be pushed even further thanks to the Sonos Trueplay app to that's capable of optimizing the audio experience. The Sonos Trueplay app that's available for Android and iOS devices will allow customers to initiate a self tuning process for the speakers, optimizing the sound experience and customizing the audio for the room.
Although the Era 300 and Era 100 are great standalone products, the beauty of Sonos products lies with expandability. The Era 300 can be matched with the Sonos Arc or Beam, delivering any even more immersive surround sound audio experience. While the Era 100 can be used in pairs, and can even be used as rear channels when paired with a Sonos soundbar.
While primarily focusing on wireless audio connections using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, the speakers will still be able to support more traditional audio products through its line-in port, making it easy to connect products like a record player or cassette deck using an auxiliary connection.
Like its previous products, Sonos was intent on delivering great audio experiences with its Era 300 and Era 100 speakers. But with the Era line, it managed to also push its sustainability efforts. The company chose to build its new Era line speakers using post consumer recycled plastics and the packaging material will be made from 100 percent sustainably sourced paper. But that's not all.
The new speakers are also more efficient, packing a new sleep mode and only consuming up to two watts of power when idle. In addition to all of the above, the company takes things further, recognizing the importance of the ease of repairability, doing away with cumbersome adhesives and instead moving over to screws, making it simpler to deconstruct the speaker when it comes time to service the unit.
As far as when the new Era line will release, both speakers will be available starting on March 28. The Era 300 will cost $449 and the Era 100 will come in at $249. Although both will be available directly from the Sonos website on launch, they should also find their way to third-party retailers sometime in the near future.
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Sonos Era 100
The Sonos Era 100 can be used independently or as a pair, featuring stereo audio and a woofer.
