Sonos has been excluding its first music speaker designed for spatial audio from previous sales events since it was released last year, so listen up: The company is selling refurbished units of the Era 300 for $359, or $91 less than retail. Yes, it’s not brand new, but Sonos’ refurb program has a good track record. At the moment, only the white Era 300s are available at a discount — the black version is sold out — but if you don’t care about color, then you will get three free months of Apple Music with your purchase.
We found the Era 300 to be one of the best-sounding speakers Sonos has made when we reviewed it. The model’s spatial audio experience can be a hit or miss in that sometimes, the Atmos versions of songs could sound like they have too much reverb that the vocals get lost in the mix. But overall, it exhibited excellent sound quality and can make songs shine by reproducing bass, vocal and instrumentation in great detail. It makes songs sound rich, crisp and vibrant. We advised not buying the Era 300 only for the sake of spatial audio in our review, since the library of tracks that support the feature remains quite small. That could change in the future, though, especially if Apple truly does start rewarding artists for offering their music in spatial audio.
It’s worth noting that Sonos recommends pairing two Era 300 speakers for “mind-bendlingly realistic surround sound,” and getting the cheaper versions would make that a more affordable prospect. The model is pretty easy to set up anyway — just add the speaker to your Sonos app and then pair it with your music services of choice — so having two or more won’t be an issue. In case you’re looking for something else, though, Sonos is selling more refurbished devices on its website.
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