The Sonos One has been my favorite Wi-Fi speaker since its release in 2017. It’s compact, capable of filling large rooms with sound, and it’s reasonably affordable. However, with the arrival of successive competitors, the Sonos one It fell behind in terms of features, especially its lack of Bluetooth.
The $250 Sonos Era 100 amends the Formula One—still Smart speaker With a choice of two voice assistants (though not Google Assistant) – but it finally adds up bluetooth and stereo sound for the mix. While I’m sad to see the One go, especially the smart free One SL, the Era 100 is a worthy successor.
Likes
Excellent sound quality Bluetooth adds flexibility, a strong ecosystem
You do not like
The slightly more expensive competition offers some better features on bass-heavy music than Google Assistant
The Sonos “problem” is that the entry-level smart speaker isn’t the only option out there anymore. Other speakers are like $300 Apple HomePod and $200 Amazon Echo Studio Displays Dolby Atmos Plus tighter integration with its own Apple and Echo ecosystems.
The Era 100 delivers excellent performance and is noticeably better than the model. It may be a little more expensive, but the extra $30 is easily justified, making the Era 100 the best smart speaker for the money. If you want the Google Assistant, get the Sonos One while you still can.
What is the age of 100?
Ty Pendlebury/CNET
The Sonos Era 100 is a compact smart speaker with a number of key features, two of which weren’t available in its predecessor, the Sonos One. The first of these, and the biggest shift in the company’s home speakers, is Bluetooth. Sonos has always maintained that Wi-Fi is better than Bluetooth — and this is for a number of reasons — but including it adds flexibility, especially for apps that don’t have AirPlay or Sonos support.
The second addition is stereo playback (most competitors are mono), and this is done by incorporating side-firing speakers. Despite this newfound capability, the Era is more or less the same size as the One at 7.2 x 4.7 x 5.1 inches. Unlike its square predecessor, the Era 100 is designed in the shape of a wraparound mesh coffee can. However, the most noticeable changes have occurred at the top of the spokes. The Sonos One features capacitive touch controls, including the ability to swipe from side to side for volume. The Era 100 makes this slider mechanism more obvious by making the volume “low,” and swiping left or right adjusts the volume incrementally.
Ty Pendlebury/CNET
Like before it, the Era 100 lets you choose a voice assistant — but not like before. While previous speakers enabled either the Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa, Sonos said that due to a change on Google’s end, the Era 100 can no longer offer the Assistant. That’s a real shame for people who were hoping to add the speaker to their existing Nest systems, though Sonos says it hopes to find a solution. Meanwhile, there’s an option to add the music-focused Sonos Voice to the Era 100 as well.
Previously, if you owned an iOS device, you could set your Sonos device for the room it’s using trueplay. Android users have been left out in the cold. Taking a cue from competitors, the Era 100 is now capable of self-calibration using the built-in microphones. It only takes a few seconds, but if you want something more complete, you can still use the iOS routine.
Connectivity has been the Sonos story since day one: the ability to play your music in any room of the house. The Era 100 builds on this with Bluetooth and a USB-C port, which replaces the One’s Ethernet port. You can connect a generic USB-C Ethernet adapter for a wired connection. But the real boon is in the optional Sonos dongle. the $19 Income Converter It allows you to add external hardware in a way previously only available on more expensive products like the $449 Port and Sonos Five. You can then share this source – a turntable Or an FM tuner, for example – among all the other speakers in your system. If you also want Ethernet, you can go to Combo adapter $39which adds a wired 3.5mm input.
Meanwhile, the Sonos ecosystem is one of the largest and most storied multi-room systems out there. It offers the flexibility of an all-in-one control app – to control your music services and speakers – or you can use streaming protocols like Apple AirPlay 2. The system no longer offers Google Assistant, and there is no Built-in Chromecast capacity, which limits streaming options for Android users.
Better sound than the one
Amazon Echo Studio (left), Sonos Era 100 (center), and Apple HomePod.
Ty Pendlebury/CNET
If there’s ever been an Old Believer in the world of streaming speakers, it’s the Sonos One. It delivers powerful, if slightly obscured, sound that’s good in any environment – from homes and offices to restaurants and shops. Sonos Consultant Recording engineer Giles Martin once told CNET You can say you’re listening to one because it’s “not annoying.”
When I compared the Sonos Era 100 to the Sonos One, the sound quality improvements revealed themselves over time. The most obvious thing I found in my testing was that the sound was more boxy than the Era 100. The Era’s dual tweeters helped make the speaker sound more open and inviting. It should be noted that for my testing, I turned off the Loudness boost that is on by default when setting up any Sonos speaker. The result is smoother bass with all the textures, and I always found it best to turn it off.
I started the audition with Andrew G’s Runner, from his album God Save the Animals. The era made this ’90s callback more dynamic than that. For example, the low piano notes that punctuate the beginning of the song actually contain some punch that was lacking in the song. The new tweeter was also a bit louder, and the decibel meter confirmed a three-dimensional difference. It’s not huge, but it’s a nice boost given the meatier low end.
The new Sonos Era 100 vs. the old Sonos One.
Ty Pendlebury/CNET
Switching to Life by The Beta Band once again amplified the Era 100’s more open sound, though it also exposed the speaker’s only potential Achilles’ heel. The soundbar may have plenty of bass, but it still uses processing tricks to achieve it. For example, I can really hear the 100th volume drop once the deep bass kicks in at the end of the song. It made the bass sound softer overall, but the sound didn’t collapse on the high end like it did with the Era.
The use of Yulunga (Spirit Dance) by Dead Can Dance demonstrated the improvements made by the stereo speakers. I could hear a distinct stereo separation in the left/right shakers appearing after the two minute mark, and while this was most noticeable when I was sitting about a foot away, I could still tell they were separate instruments six feet away. There is a “ding” in two minutes that came through deeper into the era.
Replacing the Apple HomePod, I immediately found that the Era 100 can get louder than the HomePod. Using the same Dead Can Dance track, I found the HomePod to have no real stereo effect at any distance. The aforementioned Rhythm was more confident on the HomePod, though, which is to be expected from a larger, more expensive speaker.
Next up was Echo Studio, who brought in huge high bass from the same track as Dead Can Dance. Its sound quality wasn’t as polished as the other two, especially with the singer’s voice using the speaker’s spatial stereo enhancement, and I had to fall back on the treble and mids a bit as it sounded a bit harsh. But if you want to replace the stereo system, this is the closest of the three.
Use your speakers for audiobooks or podcasts? The Era 100 handled Andrew Hickey’s deep-voiced narration well during his podcast A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs. The intelligence is excellent, and there were no problems with the throat or “bite cold”.
In retrospect, I’ve found that the Sonos One was able to outperform the Play:3 in a stereo pair. So what about an era of a hundred versus a single era of 300? I haven’t been able to hear the Era 100 in a stereo pair, but I’m hoping to test that out soon.
Finally, I tested the speaker’s bluetooth. On its own, when playing Alpha Zulu by Phoenix, it’s crisp and exciting—there’s not much to complain about in terms of sound quality. It was easy to hear the quality difference between Bluetooth and Tidal’s uncompromised sound, though, even on such a small speaker, which speaks well of the Era 100’s performance. Over Wi-Fi, the bass was more punchy and there was more “air.” ”
Should you buy it?
When the Sonos One debuted in 2017, it was nothing else like it except for some makeshift smart speakers that quickly disappeared. Certainly nothing is as well-formed as The One. (Yes, technically, Apple’s HomePod was announced before Sonos, but Apple’s speaker went on sale later.) Now, though, the Sonos One has plenty of competition.
If you already own one, this isn’t an essential upgrade. However, I can see people moving their existing soundbar into a bedroom the same way they would an old TV. If you want a smart speaker that’s compact and great-sounding, the Sonos Era 100 is an excellent choice and an easy recommendation. If you want a speaker for background music—while entertaining or just lounging—the Sonos Era 100 is just as capable as its predecessor: It’s just a great smart speaker.
Correction, March 28th: An earlier version of this review incorrectly stated that the speaker was capable of offering Google Assistant, as with the Sonos One. This has been corrected and the score has been revised from 8.5 to 8.4.
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