Review: Sonos Era 100

I’ve never really admired Sonos' speakers for their actual sound quality. Sure, the prior Play One and Five series speakers, the company's soundbars, subwoofer, and even the portable Roam sound perfectly decent. But the main draw of a Sonos speaker is the technology behind the grill. Boasting integrations with Alexa, Apple, Google, and virtually every music streaming service worth mentioning, the multiroom-capable system is the most convenient way to listen to everything, everywhere, all at once.

With the new Era 100, Sonos finally wipes the floor with competitors when it comes to sound quality too. With stereo tweeters and a more advanced room tuning feature, this is a single speaker that easily holds its own with everything but more expensive two-speaker systems. If you're in the market for a compact all-in-one speaker, the Era 100 is easily the best one I have ever heard. I would happily spread them around my home like wildflowers if I was shopping for a way to fill my home with sound.

The Era 100 looks familiar. It matches the second-generation Sonos One and One SL speakers in both size and shape. This makes sense, given that the previous models already had a sleek design that easily blends into most rooms, and given that Sonos is dedicated to keeping its previous products relevant, both visually and technologically, for years and years. 

The Sonos Era 300

Photograph: Sonos

Sonos also recently released the Era 300, a new Dolby Atmos speaker that is larger and more expensive. The Era 300 replaces the Sonos Play:3, which was discontinued before this revamp. Those speakers are still supported, but it's worth noting that the company previously got in a bit of hot water over discontinuing support for other early models. That said, technology for smart speakers has come a long way since those early models Sonos was forced to mothball, and in my experience, the company does its best to keep its products functioning for as long as possible. Later-gen Sonos speakers all still work fantastically together.

The rectangular Era 100 speaker comes in black or white. It has a volume slider on top, as well as a play-pause button, so you don’t have to pull out your phone to do the simple stuff. The slider is a welcome change that many users reportedly asked for. The speaker has a rubbery foot that means it will stick to nearly any surface you place it on. For those who dislike voice assistants, there's a switch on the back of the speaker, alongside its USB-C input, that lets you physically disable the built-in microphone.

Pairing and setup are super easy. Pop out your phone, download the Sonos app, and add the speaker to your user profile. You can tell the Sonos app where in your house the Era 100 lives, make groups of multiple speakers, and connect to all of your favorite streaming apps. I like how easy it is to integrate with Spotify and Alexa (the streaming service and voice assistant I use). The speaker also has shockingly good microphones for voice controls; I replaced an Amazon Echo Show 8 with the Era 100 in my office, and it picked up my prompts better than Amazon’s own speakers, despite being equally far away.

Like the improved mics, you won’t see many of the best enhancements built into the Era 100, but they’re apparent as soon as you start playing music. Sonos has made the woofers 25 percent larger and added a pair of angled tweeters to create real stereo sound. The previous Sonos speakers of this shape and size only played mono sound. You also get a 47 percent faster processor, which will help preserve this speaker's ability to receive software updates longer than the last one. Sonos claims that it over-builds the processing in these speakers, so to speak, so that it can accommodate future performance upgrades for as long as possible. I’ve been testing many models of Sonos speakers together for years and have never noticed any lag, but it’s nice to know these have even more wiggle room to get better down the line.

Another welcome addition is Bluetooth pairing. The Era 100 has it onboard, so you can stream audio to your speaker without a Sonos account. It also makes it easier than ever to pair a Sonos speaker with a Bluetooth turntable. Sure, you won’t be listening in the analog domain anymore if you transmit the signal wirelessly from the record player to the speaker, but one could argue (and we do) that the point of vinyl isn’t really the sound quality, it’s the whole aesthetic experience. Sonos also sells a line-in adapter ($19), if you want to plug in a CD player or other outboard device.

The new Era 100 comes in white or black.

Courtesy of Sonos

The Era 100 sounds noticeably better than the two generations of Sonos One speaker that came before it. The bass is punchier and more defined, and it doesn't feel restrained like it did in the previous models. There's also a “room tuning” feature on the speaker that really solves some of the bass problems that plagued the older model. Place the speaker near a wall or corner and run the room tuning routine. The Era 100 will listen to what its playback sounds like, then the processing algorithms inside the speaker will adjust the output to clean up the audio. Because of the physics of audio waves, speakers sitting in these confined locations will often sound too boomy or bass-heavy, but Sonos's on-device software fixes those issues, sometimes with results that are staggeringly good. You can do the room tuning using either the mic built into the Era 100, or by using an iPhone for even better accuracy. (The Android-powered version of the room-tuning feature is not as capable as the iOS version. Sorry, Android peeps.)

The tuning feature keeps everything sounding great no matter where you might be forced to place the speaker, based on your available surface space and power outlets. It does such a good job of keeping audio neutral and flat that there were a few times I couldn’t tell which speaker in my tuned testing space the music was coming from. That was a bit shocking, considering that I usually listen on very expensive studio monitors powered by PC-based tuning software, which costs more than the Era 100 on its own.

Add to that self-healing prowess the new angled tweeters that generate a real stereo image, and this becomes one of my favorite room-filling speakers ever. The stereo effect means that you don’t feel like your music is as small as it was before. If you just want to listen to something while you work, cook, or do chores around the house, the Era 100 does an excellent job of filling the space with great sound that feels like it's being made by an old-school wired system with in-ceiling speakers. Well played, Sonos.

Note the switch near the bottom that disables the built-in microphone.

Photograph: Sonos

Pop and hip-hop songs sound particularly good on the Era 100, with kick drums and polished snares working well with vocal delays and cool modern panning. I especially liked listening to the psych rock of Twin Peaks, where the kick drum and cymbals of “In the Meadow” play well with compressed and centered vocals.

The Era 100 truly is a fantastic-sounding powered speaker, with crisp definition up high and a great spread in the midrange that keeps guitars, pianos, and voices from standing all over each other like they can on other all-in-ones. It’s honestly impressive how much better the sound is between generations. It's easily the biggest product-to-product leap I’ve heard from Sonos thus far.

If you're shopping around for smart speakers and you want the most open ecosystem around, Sonos is still the way to go. But this time I'm recommending Sonos not only for its good software. Sonos' sound has finally entered its golden age. Welcome to the Era Era.