Sonos Era 300

The Sonos Era 300 is the speaker for people who want spatial audio without building a home cinema. At $599, down from a $799 recommended retail price (RRP), it is firmly premium. It justifies most of that with a genuinely unusual driver layout: six drivers including an upward-firing tweeter, all aimed at throwing sound around the room rather than just at you. As a single-box music speaker it is very good. As a Dolby Atmos speaker it is one of very few that actually does the trick.

Unlike the older Sonos units, the Era 300 has Bluetooth as well as WiFi 6E, so you are not locked to the network. There is also a USB-C line-in if you want to plug in a turntable, though Sonos charges extra for the adapter. Voice control is Sonos Voice Control or Alexa. Google Assistant is gone, which matters if that is your household's default.

What the RefDat test lab found

On ordinary stereo music it is excellent: powerful, well-judged bass that fills a large lounge without going flabby, clean mids and a top end that stays composed at volume. Trueplay tuning, now available on Android as well as iPhone, measures your room and adjusts the sound, and the difference is real rather than marketing. Switch to a Dolby Atmos track on Apple Music or another Dolby Atmos streaming service and the upward drivers open the soundstage up and over your head in a way a normal speaker simply cannot. Pair two as rear speakers for a Sonos Arc and you have a proper surround setup. We ran it hard for weeks with no overheating and no dropouts.

What owners actually report

The big one is the app. Sonos owners on Whirlpool, Reddit and OzBargain have been vocal since the mid-2024 app redesign, reporting missing features, slow loading and connection drops that turned a premium product into a frustrating one for a while. Sonos has been patching it steadily, but if you read recent threads you will still find people venting. Worth knowing before you spend $599. The second watch-out owners raise is the spatial audio catch: Atmos music only works on Apple Music or another Dolby Atmos streaming service, so Spotify listeners get stereo only. And the line-in needs a paid adapter that several owners felt should have been in the box.

Who should skip it? If you just want a cheap speaker to pair to your phone, this is overkill and you are paying for an ecosystem you will not use. The Era 300 is for people who are in, or about to be in, the Sonos world.

You will find it at JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman and Officeworks. It discounts more readily than Apple gear, and OzBargain regularly flags 10 to 15 per cent off around sale events, so it is worth waiting for one.

Australian Consumer Law (ACL): at $599 this speaker should reasonably last 5 to 7 years, with the consumer guarantees realistically covering 3 to 4, beyond the standard 1-year warranty. If a driver, the power supply or the wireless module fails inside that window, you have a claim. Go to your retailer first. As always, rule out a network problem before blaming the hardware for dropouts.

Bottom line: the best single-speaker route into Dolby Atmos music, and a top-tier stereo speaker on top. Highly recommended if you want spatial audio or you are buying into Sonos. Just go in knowing the app has been a sore point. RefDat score 4.6 out of 5.