Sonos Era 300 review: spatial audio in the kitchen

Two Sonos Era 300s in the kitchen since February. £900 of speaker. Six months later, mostly worth it, with caveats.

What is good - Stereo pair fills a 6 by 8 metre kitchen with no dead spots - Dolby Atmos tracks on Apple Music and Amazon Music HD genuinely sound different - Mid-range is fuller than the original Sonos One ever was

What is fine - Bass is decent for the size, not subwoofer territory - Trueplay tuning works on iPhone (still no Android Trueplay) - AirPlay 2 just works

What is annoying - The S2 app is slow to launch and slower to control - Multi-room sync occasionally stutters when bridging Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 networks - Voice control via Sonos Voice or Alexa is noticeably less reliable than Apple HomePod's Siri

The spatial gimmick test Most stereo tracks "upmixed" to spatial sound bad. The Atmos-native catalogue is small. The sweet spot is 80s and 90s remasters in Atmos, where the production has actual room cues to work with.

Should you buy? For a primary listening room: yes. For background music: get a single Era 100 and save £600. The Era 300 punches above its size for spatial work specifically. Outside spatial, the Era 100 stereo pair is 90% of the experience for half the cost.