Anyne got one 9or more) of the new Sonos Era speakers (100 or 300)?
If so, are you impressed?
Reason - looking for replacement bedroom speakers. Currently, Amazon Echo /(5th Gen, I think).
I'm looking for replacements and am going up-scale quite a bit. Among considerations are Ruark MR1 Mk II (£350-ish), and KEF LSX II (£1000). Yes, quite a range and quite a jump in price. Which is why I'm trying to cover all bases.
Requirements :-
- active
- must be bookshelf-capable
- preferably wired and wireless connectivity
- sound needs to very impressive (especially at the KEF end of the range).
These are, let's say, an extravagance. A treat. For reasons not worth going into I'm expecting to get a lot more use over the next few years than thev last three or so, and .... having digitised pretty much my entire LP, CD and even C90 cassette collection, and NAS'd it, I just want to get the bestsound I can, within reason and within that price range.
While I will go to the KEFs, I'm .... hesitant .... to go far far, mainly because I suspect the limitng factor is my ears.
So, having been pondering this for a while and having difficulties getting to actually hear these, I've now has Sonos suggested as worth a look and in paticular, their new range.
From what I can make of it, the Era 100 are effectively aimed at stereo music, though each single speaker has a degree of spreading sound-stage by pointing tweeters off to the sides. But the Era 300 seems to be aimed squarely at te supposedly emerging "spacial" sound, and each (£450) speakers has about 6 drives, pointing pretty much everywhere but straight ahead, and uses the Sonos smart software (True-something) to provide a sort-of whole room experience.
This seems to have 2 intended uses - one is multi-channel TV "Surround" sound, and te other is with specially remastered music, which at the moment, seems to e pretty much only avaiable via Apple Music and Amazon Music, both of which are subscription services which I'm not keen on. Doesn't seem to be available on Spotify, Tidal etc. Not yet, anyway.
My main use, by a large margin, will be music (and the occasional radio broadcast), not TV, and I plan on getting the vast bulk of it (95% and up) from subscribing to my own NAS, with the music I "own" already.
Oh, and a proper Sonos setup for room sound needs an Apple device (iphone, etc) which I don't have, and don't know anybody (close to me) that does. Which means I can only do the "quick" setup, not the full job.
But the Sonos, especially Era 100) IF they sound good, are pretty much perfect in firm factor, i that they'll fit pretty much where two Echo's currently sit. One appealling aspect of Sonos is a 100-day return option, if I don't like them, which goes a long way to solving the problem of buying speakers without hearing them first.
Anyone got experience of these new "Era" speakers, especially the 100?