Sonos introduced new smart speakers with new features and better sound. However, the company has deleted one feature.
There are more and more speakers that can play 3D audio. These include Sonos’ completely newly developed Era loudspeakers, which can play music in Dolby Atmos format.
The Era 300 sounds like no other speaker
The three years of development work were not in vain: the Era 300 sounds like no other speaker. One is used to perceiving the sound in a stereo coordinate system: left, right or center. The Era 300 dissolves these dividing lines with Atmos music and instead fills the room with a three-dimensional sound image – from just one device. It has the density of mono but with surround sound.
This is made possible by the unusual shape, which is reminiscent of a lying, somewhat angular hourglass. The speaker narrows in a trapezoidal shape towards the middle and widens again towards the back. In this rear part there are two sideways bass membranes and three tweeters that provide the surround sound.
Two of the tweeters each aim to the left and right – and one upwards so that the sound can go to the ceiling and be reflected from there. The fourth tweeter is in the front and is aimed directly at the listener.
Dolby Atmos effect: from the cinema to the music industry
Dolby Atmos is mainly known from cinemas with loudspeakers on all walls. Dolby and the music industry have been trying to establish the technology for songs for a number of years.
Ideally, for full surround sound, you would be surrounded by twelve speakers: four in the front, four in the back, two on the side plus a center channel and a subwoofer. The professionals who produce Atmos mixes sit in such a set-up. You can place up to 128 audio tracks anywhere in the room and let them whiz around.
Even such experts do not believe that such a set-up is the solution for the majority of consumers: on the one hand, they could overwhelm the sound balance, on the other hand, the many loudspeakers would dominate the interior design.
That’s why there are Atmos soundbars that use sound reflections from the ceiling to imitate other speakers. Adding two surround speakers behind the listeners already improves the spatial effect significantly. But together with a subwoofer, a few thousand euros can easily be due.
With the Era 300, which costs 500 euros, Sonos now wants to offer an Atmos effect from a box. Unsurprisingly, there are multiple physical speakers in the case to completely surround the listener with sound. Nevertheless, the Era 300 opens up a new kind of music experience. Two Eras can also be used as surround speakers in addition to a Sonos soundbar, which provides more detail resolution even with film soundtracks.
It’s all in the mix
However, the quality of these mixes sometimes varies widely and this can lead to very different musical experiences. A well-done mix brings the music to life with more volume. A bad one “steals her soul,” as music producer Giles Martin admits.
The son of the legendary Beatles producer George Martin not only remixed albums from the “Fab Four” in Atmos, but also plays a key role in the distribution of 3D music as a sound consultant for Sonos and the world’s largest music company Universal Music.
A typical mistake is to pull the individual soundtracks too far apart in space, which can take pressure out of a song, explains Martin. The loudspeakers, meanwhile, reproduce every mix true to the original: what was mixed unhappily sounds wrong.
Sonos Era without Google integration
Sonos lets you play Atmos music from both Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited via its in-house app. Only Amazon’s Alexa can be integrated as a language assistant in the Era 300, the previous support for the Google Assistant is no longer available. According to Sonos, this is due to technical changes at Google.
With material from dpa