Looking to upgrade your Sonos setup? The Sonos Era 300 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is 20 percent off from Amazon, bringing it down to just $359 and tying its lowest-ever price. That’s a great deal on our editors’ favorite surround sound Sonos speaker, and it would make a perfect upgrade to your existing Sonos configuration or a place to start building your audio empire.
Photograph: Sonos
The big draw here is spatial audio, which our team feels performs even better than Apple’s Homepod (5/10, WIRED Review) when it comes to filling a room with sound. That’s largely thanks to the array of drivers, including six speakers, four tweeters, and a pair of mid/bass drivers all packed into one vaguely robot-butt-shaped device.
We also appreciate that the Era 300 has physical controls, in case you need to make quick adjustments without pulling out your phone. There’s a volume slider, track controls, and a button to activate either Amazon Alexa or the Sonos Voice Control. There’s also Bluetooth pairing if you want to skip the Sonos app altogether and just hook your phone up directly.
The app (now finally working again after some woes last year) provides a lot of value, though, letting you connect all of your speakers together for whole home audio, and it supports distinct speaker types, like soundbars and bookshelf speakers. Sonos speakers are easy to set up and configure, have a wide support for streaming services and smart home options, and just sound great. They even found their way onto our favorite Bluetooth speakers list, despite having their own protocol for home audio.
Our reviewer was particularly impressed with the audio quality on the Era 300, saying it sounded detailed and expressive whether they were listening to music or spoken word and calling it a “poised and eloquent listen.” Make sure to check out the full review for more details on why we like this speaker over the many other Sonos options.
If you want to double up for true multichannel surround sound, you can pick up two speakers as a bundle, but you won’t save any cash, just packaging. The big downside to Sonos speakers is that they tend to be expensive, but if you’re looking to get started in the ecosystem and have a great television to pair it with, these are worth a serious look.
