🎼 Apple Music Classical Review + Sonos Era 300s

🎶 Apple Music Classical…Rocks!

Forgive the pun, but Apple’s dedicated app for classical music launched earlier this week and it delivers a great experience for long-time fans of the genre, and those classical-curious.

As someone who already has some favorite works, the search functionality and library organization in the app has been intentionally designed. Composers, works, and recordings all get their separate areas in the app, and finding that one “concerto by Rachmanoniv” is much easier than in the stock music app.

For newcomers to classical music, I highly recommend the “Story of Classical” 9-part audio documentary in the app. It does an excellent job of making classical music accessible and deftly explains the nuance between Romantic, Baroque, and other musical time periods.

Watch my full review (in a tux no less!) right here:

🔊 Reviewing Sonos Era 300 Speakers

Since building out multiple home theater setups in our new home, I’ve had the opportunity to try many audio products in the last year. After seeing the response to my HomePod 2 review video (over 100k views!) I wanted to take the opportunity and review two new Sonos speaker products: the Era 100 and Era 300.

You can watch the full review here, but immediately after posting, I had doubts:

Reviewing an audio product is inherently fraught. What we hear is subjective on multiple levels, variations in our physical hearing, the rooms where someone will place a speaker, and our own personal preferences all come into play. The factors that contribute to someone saying, “I like how this sounds,” varies widely from person-to-person.

The Era 300 speaker from Sonos is a $450 piece of gear. Not cheap, and $150 more than Apple’s HomePod. Sonos has done quite the publicity sprint to make sure everyone thinks of these speakers as the new de-facto, professional home audio experience.

All the information on the surface points to the idea that these speakers are the best you can get in their price range and are bringing in a “new Era of sound.” Sonos’ words, not mine 😏

And it’s true, they’re incredible! I set up a pair of Sonos Era 300s in my studio, tried them in a larger bedroom, and they produce an amazing sound. The biggest selling feature is how they’re built to create an immersive Spatial Audio experience.

In simple terms, it should sound like there’s music all around you. Producers can “place” a guitar or glockenspiel in 3D space when editing an album, and as you listen on your home speaker, it should sound like that instrument is above, behind, or somewhere in a specific part of the room thanks to Spatial Audio. You can tell which albums or tracks have been mixed for this experience by looking for the Dolby Atmos tag in Apple Music or Amazon HD. Spotify has yet to release this kind of feature.

This video from Sonos gets into the actual construction of the Era 300 to achieve this 3D audio effect:

When I tested a pair of Era 300 speakers, it was the first time I genuinely felt the Spatial Audio experience was worth it. It feels like music and instruments are happening all around you, not just coming out of the speakers sitting on a shelf.

And when I set up the Era 300 speakers as home theater rear channels, which you can do if you have a Sonos Beam or Arc, it is one of the most immersive movie and music experiences you can achieve without 18+ speakers in your ceiling. It’s wild.

But, as I listened side-by-side with HomePod 2, which I’ve had in my studio for several months, I found the HomePod still holds up to these behemoth speakers! Yes, the Era 300s do a better simulation of Spatial Audio, but there are some aspects of the HomePod I still prefer: bass being one of them.

Listening to a pop track on both the HomePod 2 and Era 300s, one right after another, I actually found I preferred the HomePod 2’s bass performance. This seems crazy, since the Era 300 is much larger, has 2 woofer cones instead of 1, and costs $450, but that’s what I heard 🤷🏼‍♂️

I debated even including that comment in my video review, but if I say I’m doing an in-depth review, I should include every aspect of my experience.

Before personally reviewing the speakers, I avoided watching other reviews so they didn’t persuade my thoughts. But since publishing mine, I found this review from Audio Advice:

That link will jump to the end of their review where they explain the Sonos 5 has more bass than the Era 300s. Vindication! It’s as I suspected. The Era 300s are made for Spatial Audio, and they excel at it, even over a pair of HomePod 2s, but the bass is another story.

If you were to pair the Era 300s with a Sonos Sub Mini or Sub Gen3 (I have both and they’re amazing), I believe the music and movie experience would beat out the HomePods hands down. But just comparing a $900 pair of Era 300s to a $600 pair of HomePods, because of the better bass, I actually prefer the pair of HomePods.

Again, since audio is extremely subjective, you may prefer the opposite! It’s all based on our listening preferences. You can crank the bass EQ in the Sonos app for the Era 300s and get it close to the HomePod bass experience, but it never really achieves the “punch” I feel on the HomePod.

All that to say, I stand by my review. The Era 300s are incredible speakers, and depending on your use case and room, they may be the perfect speakers. But for my 9’ x 8’ studio, and being deeply entrenched in the Apple ecosystem, I’m staying with my HomePods.