First 5 minute impression. I do own the Sonos Fives. I generally prefer flat in-room response rather than downsloping frequency responses and prefer lots of bass. (JBL 708P and Onkyo D-TK10 are my reference bookshelves. I like the original Magnepan MG-III which has a flatter in-room curve. I add super tweeters to my JBL S2600 to fill the >16 kHz region).
1) I like it better than the Sonos Five. The fives have disproportionately great bass for their size. The Sonos Era 300 is lean for the bass, but appropriately for its size. I put it in the class of JBL Studio 530 or closer to JBL Studio 620 (which has less subjective bass than the Studio 530). The Era300 is much smaller in person than expected. It's going to be a good fit w/the Sub.
The Sonos Five sounds great in a single seat in vertical stereo mode. Darko has a great subjective review where it's compared against the KEF LSX. I ended up using the Five's in stereo horizontal mode for their "room filling" casual listening sound.
The Era300 in a single position already sounds more to my preference.
2) I ran Trueplay with my iPhone 13 Pro Max. I am a big fan of Trueplay for both the Sonos Five and my bedroom Sonos Arc and kid's room Sonos Beam 2. My first impressions of the Era 300 were that it was lousy. Boomy and sounds like a small speaker trying to sound large. Turning TRUEPLAY OFF was much better. This removed the unnatural bass boost and instead it sounded like a good bookshelf. In this case, Trueplay worsened the sound from the Era 300 due to the aggressive bass boost. This is different from my experience with Trueplay and the other Sonos speakers.
3) I bought two, but am first trying it as a solo speaker. It does genuinely deliver a Magnepan flat-panel like sound that is bigger than you'd expect for the size without unnatural echo's or loss of resolution. Clever trick.
Oh it does have a day 1 firmware update too..
1) I like it better than the Sonos Five. The fives have disproportionately great bass for their size. The Sonos Era 300 is lean for the bass, but appropriately for its size. I put it in the class of JBL Studio 530 or closer to JBL Studio 620 (which has less subjective bass than the Studio 530). The Era300 is much smaller in person than expected. It's going to be a good fit w/the Sub.
The Sonos Five sounds great in a single seat in vertical stereo mode. Darko has a great subjective review where it's compared against the KEF LSX. I ended up using the Five's in stereo horizontal mode for their "room filling" casual listening sound.
The Era300 in a single position already sounds more to my preference.
2) I ran Trueplay with my iPhone 13 Pro Max. I am a big fan of Trueplay for both the Sonos Five and my bedroom Sonos Arc and kid's room Sonos Beam 2. My first impressions of the Era 300 were that it was lousy. Boomy and sounds like a small speaker trying to sound large. Turning TRUEPLAY OFF was much better. This removed the unnatural bass boost and instead it sounded like a good bookshelf. In this case, Trueplay worsened the sound from the Era 300 due to the aggressive bass boost. This is different from my experience with Trueplay and the other Sonos speakers.
3) I bought two, but am first trying it as a solo speaker. It does genuinely deliver a Magnepan flat-panel like sound that is bigger than you'd expect for the size without unnatural echo's or loss of resolution. Clever trick.
Oh it does have a day 1 firmware update too..