The New Sonos Era 100 and Era 300 Speakers Paired With the Stream Carbon Delivers An Incredible Listening Experience

If you know Sonos, then you know that they are always cooking up something exciting for music fans. The recent release of the new Era series speakers is no exception, and we, of course, wanted to immediately test them with our Stream Carbon and Onyx Works With Sonos turntables. 

The Era speakers connect seamlessly to your network and bring a completely new experience to your audio. The Eras feature directional tweeters and woofers; this allows the speaker to open up a much more expansive sound and fill the room with rich, full, and all-encompassing sound. 

So what model is suitable for you? 

Sonos Era 100

The Sonos Era 100 is a bookshelf-sized speaker with a similar form factor to the Sonos 1 and works great alone or as a pair synced for stereo. It boasts a sleek, modern design that looks great next to the Victrola Stream Carbon or Onyx. The speaker measures 7.18 H x 4.72 W x 5.14 D inches and weighs 4.44 pounds, making it perfect for smaller spaces; it's roughly an inch taller than the Play 1 speaker. 

The Era 100 speaker produces impressive sound, considering its compact design. Sonos has always been known for extracting excellent sound from small speakers; just listen to the Sonos One. However, the Era 100 goes a step further due to its twin angled tweeters that create a sense of openness. Compared to the Sonos One, the Era 100 has a more airy and expansive soundstage, making it an excellent choice for a single-speaker solution in most rooms.

The Era 100 produces bass with distinct nuances, noticeable on albums like Brian Enos' Music for Installations and J Dilla's The Diary of J Dilla (VMP Edition). The bass may not feel as pronounced on the Sonos Era 100 out of the box, but that can easily be fixed by tweaking the EQ. There is, in fact, a larger woofer compared to the Play 1, resulting in a more prominent and robust bass response. If you live in a smaller apartment, one speaker sounds excellent. Still, we recommend setting them up as a stereo pair if you can for the best experience possible with a Victrola Stream turntable. 

 Sonos Era 300

If you have a bigger space, then the Sonos Era 300 is a fabulous way to go, and it sounds big, open, and brilliant. The Era 300 fits nicely between the Era 100 and Play 5 models in the Sonos line. It offers an internal speaker configuration that creates an almost magical room-filling effect; it's so good that you can get away with just one of them. 

The speaker features six class-D amplifiers tuned and designed to deliver powerful, clear sound with deep bass and crisp treble. So in one speaker, you get two woofers pointing in different directions along with four tweeters, all working to fill your room with sound. If you close your eyes, it's hard to fathom that all the sound comes from just one speaker. We didn't get the chance to test two of them together, so we can only imagine how good they would sound as a stereo pair. 

There is nothing quite like putting on a record, sipping a beverage, and letting the music surround you. When listening to the Stream Carbon and Era 300, we played various records to dig into the separation. From Tycho's Epoch to Odesza's A Moment Apart to a few LoFi compilations, we heard details and fullness that commanded our attention. 

Overall both these speakers are exceptional in their own right, and however you decide to configure them with a Victrola Stream Turntable, you will have an incredible listening experience.