Sonos Era 100 – Black – Wireless, Alexa Enabled Smart Speaker

These were the ending pieces to my Sonos set up. The set up with soundbar and sub is perfect. Happy to say I’m glad I went with Sonos line. All the pieces just work well together and pairing wasn’t a headache.

What a shame. When they work the sound is amazing. The problem. They never work for streaming music because of a woeful update to its software. Even the NYT, which once recommended the system as the best has changed its mind. About three months ago Sonos updated its system software that literally rendered my entire Sonos speaker system (This Sonos Era 100 included) useless. To use this system as a music streaming device, you must use the Sonos App. Sonos used to have one of the best apps in the business. Intuitive with amazing functionality. A few months ago they tried to update it, basically trying to make it look more like Amazon music. It was an utter failure. Folks like me are wanting to sell their entire system. I stayed with sonos for three months now since they promised they would make things right. They have not. The speakers stop streaming music after playing just one song. Nearly no commands work correctly. When I tell it to stop playing a song. It does not listen. I manually have to press the button on the speaker. This system was developed so you could talk to it and play all music across an entire CD. That used to be possible. Now it is not. Literally stops playing after one song. Via voice prompt, when you tell it to go to the next song, it cannot. We Sonos music streamers have lost the capability to stream music directly from our device’s own music library. Many of us bought Sonos because we wanted to have great speakers that would directly play music from our phones or our shared music library folders on our computers. That functionality has ceased to exist. Run! Don’t walk. And return these speakers. Their only use today is as a bluetooth device where you have to physically press each song you want to move onto via whatever controlling system you have for bluetooth. The Sonos incompetence here I cannot overstate. A once great company and music system has fallen. Such a shame. It did not have to be this way. If I could speak to the CEO of Sonos I would tell him this: Your bread and butter was your speaker system, not headphones, not other products. Get back to the basics. Restore the streaming functionality that allowed us to enjoy music via touchless voice commands and software that was once top notch. I have five Sonos speakers for sale. I hate to do it, but I am making all my speakers Amazon speakers. At least Amazon respects it customers by doing research before launching new products that destroy the functionality of what used to be. Goodbye, Sonos. Forever!

Replaced my old port system connected to Bose speakers with stereo pair 100s, a sub mini and an era 300. Nice sound but find the new Sonos app to be quirky. Volume con unexpectedly increase, the app is slow on volume adjustments whereas the earlier version had no similar issues. Apparently the new version of the app was released before a proper shakedown. Speakers are high quality.

First of all, I’m admittedly an audiophile snob. So keep that in mind when reading my comments. This fit, finish, and execution of this product is excellent. The app and setup process was completely troublefree and I had the pair of these configured and playing in stereo in about 10 minutes. I really appreciate the tactile control on the top of the speakers for pause, play and volume up and down.The sound quality was a mixed bag for me. The top end is very even and without any stridency. There is a modest amount of mid range suckout. This was somewhat disappointing for me as I listen to a lot of female jazz singers. Vocal reproduction is often missing the natural timbre that you get from higher end speakers and headphones. Vocalist can sound “thin” and somewhat nasley. And then there is the bass.Once these speakers are placed properly (8-10 feet apart) and the listener is positioned to create a triangle from the speakers, the bass is somewhat shockingly good for speakers of this size. I had to turn the loudness feature off and dialed the bass down (-2) in the EQ setting. The response from the bass with these settings is still stong and punchy, and there is even a bit of texture to the sound. How Sonos is able to accomplish this with a speaker these size, I just don’t understand.The convenience of the stereo pair and overall performance of the speakers make these a keeper for me despite being an audiophile. I’ll probably look to add a Sonos sound bar in the future.