Sonos Era 300 review: sparkling wifi hi-fi raises bar for spatial audio

The Era 300 is the second in Sonos's next-generation line of wifi hi-fis, packing six speakers into one curvaceous box capable of immersing listeners in quality sound. The speaker costs £449 ($449/A$749) and sits above the new £249 Era 100, competing directly with Apple's HomePod and other high-end speakers – premium audio at a premium price. But where the Era 100 is a compact bookshelf speaker, the Era 300 is a different animal. It needs to sit out in the open to allow it to project music outwards from its front, sides and top to fill the room with sound. The cinched-in design allows a series of speakers to fire up and out to the sides from the back half of the Era 300, projecting sound all around the listener for full stereo and new spatial audio surround sound.