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If you happened upon the new Sonos Era 300 straight on you might be inclined to shrug, albeit approvingly. Viewed head on, the newly announced Era 300 looks very much the part of the Sonos audio speaker family, down to the typographic palindrome logo and its characteristically perfectly perforated minimalist oblong profile. But veer just a little to the left, right, or from any angle really, and things get a little… different. You’ll then notice the Era 300 looks nothing like any other Sonos product before it, and there’s a good reason behind this unusual hourglass design.
“The Sonos Era 300 is a ‘blank sheet of paper’ design,” explains Dana Krieger, VP of hardware design at Sonos when asked about the cinched form during a video call with Design Milk. “There are six transducers positioned around the product: one facing forward, two tweeters on the left and right, two woofers on each side, and one in the center aimed upward.”
At its core the Era 300’s form is conceived to direct sound not just optimally toward the listener from the front and sides, but also audibly from above, with an up-firing tweeter engineered to produce engaging and immersive spatial playback.
The Era 300 also features a newly designed capacitive volume slider with a subtle shallow channel that intuitively communicates, “Slide your finger here.”
The Era 300 is joined by the release of a smaller Era 100, “a remastering of the best-selling
Sonos One.”
“According to our audio team, the optimal position is somewhere between zero and 20 degrees off the vertical axis,” says Krieger, “And this design positions that [center-top] transducer right at 10º. So taking that 10º angle and wrapping it all around the product puts each of those six transducers in their best location for a spatial experience.”
The Era 300’s design may be configured for the best spatial experience, but it’s safe to say its design may prove aesthetically divisive, an issue the Sonos brand has generally been able to avoid because its existing lineup is so tastefully minimalist. Primarily made up of extruded cylindrical forms that have proven time and time again supremely adaptable to most any room setting, the Era 300 is very much that same signature Sonos form, but with a cinched center that hits a bit different.
Where the Sonos Era 300’s immersive capabilities become a most intriguing proposition is when paired with the Sonos Arc and Sonos Sub. We plan to report about the Era 300’s spatial and Dolby Atmos performance in the coming weeks to determine whether a pinch of new design proves a good thing for the Sonos brand.
Sonos is betting brand devotees and new customers will become quickly acclimated to the divergence in design, instead focusing more upon the wow-factor delivered via the speaker’s spatial audio performance, a proposition that becomes even more interesting and convincing when two Era 300s are configured into a multi-channel Dolby Atmos surround sound rear setup. Paired alongside the brand’s Arc or Beam sound bar and Sub, this twice-as-nice configuration should conjure a convincingly immersive aural realm in 360 degrees from above and around where other up-firing speakers can only half-heartedly perform.
The Era 300 and Era 100 will be available globally starting on March 28, 2023 for $449 and $249, with each listed for pre-order today at Sonos.com.
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When we see the three letters K-E-F subtly emblazoned across any speaker, expectations are for a realistic listening experienced from speakers realized with industrial design conceived to tastefully coexist in a living space. In short, KEF has always made speakers that look nearly as good as they sound. But speakers like the brand’s $22,000 Reference 5 Meta loudspeakers orbit a stratosphere only few could imagine even consider. The British audio gear brand’s new R Series Meta collection arrives as a welcome attempt to bring some of their flagship performance down to earth with seven models to mix-and-match.
Given enough time any cutting-edge technology eventually parachutes down into the realm of affordability. Of course, “affordable” within the audiophile category is subjective, but KEF’s new seven model loudspeaker line justifies the price tags with flagship details borrowed from the aforementioned top-of-the-line The Reference. To put this into perspective, a pair of these new R3 Meta bookshelf speakers arrive at one-tenth the price of its flagship predecessor, with even the largest R11 Meta option priced at a subjectively reasonable $3,250 (each).
Detail of KEF’s new Metamaterial Absorption Technology (MAT), a circular plate with a maze-like structure of intricate channels engineered to absorb specific frequencies. The channels act as an acoustic black hole, absorbing 99% of the unwanted sound from the rear of the tweeter.
The R Series is engineered to please ears equally whether while listening to music in a stereo configuration or as a multi-speaker Dolby Atmos capable surround sound home theater solution.
This updated R Series now shares the same proprietary maze-like driver design as the feature towering, The Reference. Metamaterial Absorption Technology, or MAT for short, is reputed to absorb 99% of unwanted frequencies. KEF uses the analogy of an acoustic black hole – a labyrinth where undesirable distortions never escape.
The R Series also includes a slightly modified 12th-generation Uni-Q driver, the same component found in the brand’s LS50 Meta bookshelf speakers, a model we always considered a gateway into audiophile acoustics.
Shown here with the ceiling aimed Dolby Atmos-compatible R8 Meta surround modules seated atop, the R Series is adaptable for a variety of applications and room dimensions.
KEF continues to give their latest line a characteristically handsome finish aligned with the previous R Series, with the latest KEF R Series Meta collection available in White Gloss, Black Gloss, or a handsome Walnut finish. The R3 Meta is also offered in a conspicuous Indigo Gloss. Bump up to the R7 and there’s a subtly automotive metallic Titanium Gloss finish. Head here to see the complete collection with pricing.
Enlarge / Stratospheric weather balloons are released every day, such as this one from the Technical University of Munich in 2021. The Chinese balloon is likely much larger and more sophisticated. (credit: Tobias Hase/picture alliance via Getty Images)
On Thursday, US officials confirmed that a high-altitude balloon, launched days ago by the Chinese government, has been flying over the northern United States. This has since become an international incident and led the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to delay a high-profile visit to China to meet with the nation's president, Xi Jinping.
The balloon's flight raises several questions—such as, just what the heck is it doing there? This story will address what is known and not known about the flight. The information below is based on public statements, other news reports, and an interview with a stratospheric balloon expert, Andrew Antonio, whose company, Urban Sky, is developing the world’s first reusable stratospheric balloons for remote sensing.
How big is the balloon?
As January draws to a close, our favorite stories this week included a stirring critical essay, a paean to the world’s greatest boxed meal, a rethinking of psychedelics’ impact on the planet, a profile of a craftsperson at his peak, and an eye-opener about how humpback whales use air in some unexpected ways.
Ken Chen | n+1 | 11,542 words | January 25, 2023
After Corky Lee passed last year, the photographer and community organizer was memorialized in his hometown’s most conventionally prestigious outlets: The Times offered a sizable obituary, as did Hua Hsu in The New Yorker. This week, on the first anniversary of Lee’s death, Ken Chen rendered an altogether different kind of portrait in n+1. Much of the same biographical information is included, as are a number of Lee’s iconic photographs of Asian Americans in New York throughout the last six decades. Yet, when Chen writes about his encounters with Lee, and about the 14 photographs he selects to represent Lee’s work, the grief that suffuses his words isn’t solely about Lee, but about the many atrocities visited upon the Asian American community, up to and after Lee’s death. Chen’s critical acumen here is reason enough to read: “His images lack a charismatic subject,” he writes of Lee. “Those whom capital dismissed as surplus, he saw as beautiful. He commemorated the multitude, the striking waiters and seamstresses whose unruly abundance crowded away any beatific composition.” But he brings a similar understated poetry to the social conditions Lee’s work served to illuminate — and with violence against Asian American elders and others seemingly unending (including a horrifying recent attack in my own hometown), that juxtaposition makes Chen’s piece nearly as indelible as the images it contains. —PR
Ivana Rihter | Catapult | January 19, 2023 | 2,261 words
I only discovered Kraft dinners later in life after moving to North America revealed the cult of Kraft to me. A stable lurking in every cupboard; I admired the respect that something so impossibly orange had managed to garner. When Ivana Rihter finds KDs, though, they are much more; cooked for her by her baba, they are inextricably linked to her immigration story. She describes the process of boiling the pasta and adding the sauce with reverence, the memory mixed in with her love for her baba and appreciation for the economic hardships her family struggled through to start their new life. Her baba teaches her to put feta on top, and with this “secret little piece of the home country mixed in with all-American shelf-stable cheese” it remains a food for life, and — consistently sitting at about a dollar a box — one that carries on seeing her through hard times. I found this an unexpectedly beautiful essay, more about memory and belonging than cheesy pasta. Food can transport you back in time, especially if, as Rihter describes it, it “is soaked with memories of [an] origin story.” —CW
Amber X. Chen | Atmos | January 16, 2023 | 3,196 words
In this piece, Chen explores what the current psychedelic renaissance means for environmental activism, and how synthetic drugs like LSD and MDMA and psychoactive plants like ayahuasca and peyote can stir change within individuals — and ultimately galvanize social movements. This all sounds incredibly positive on the surface, but not everyone who dabbles in such mind-altering journeys is transformed for the better; psychedelics also fuel right-wing movements, too. (See: “QAnon Shaman.“) The decriminalization of psychedelics is a step toward making their therapeutic benefits accessible to more people, yes, but as Chen notes, it increases the threat of deforestation, and — with today’s psychedelic movement being largely white — it also takes power away from Indigenous people, who have harnessed the healing power of these sacred plants for thousands of years. (See also a Top 5 essay I picked last year: “The Gentrification of Consciousness.”) I appreciate Chen’s exploration here, and the questions posed that I haven’t stopped thinking about, like: “How broken is Western society that we think we need drugs in order to facilitate mass climate action?” —CLR
Elly Fishman | Chicago Magazine | January 17, 2023 | 4,177 words
Recently, in his late 60s, my dad decided to learn how to play the violin. I respect the choice to try the impossible, especially something as delicate and timeless as bowing a stringed instrument. (My parents’ cats, who endure the scratching out of notes from beneath the couch or bed, seem to have a different opinion.) After reading this lovely profile, I think perhaps my dad, a skilled carpenter, should also try apprenticing as a luthier. I, someone with zero skills at playing an instrument besides an egg shaker, who curses putting IKEA furniture together, was mesmerized by the descriptions of how John Becker, perhaps the best violin restorer on earth, practices his craft. Elly Fishman’s profile has a musical quality: It sweeps readers through chapters of Becker’s personal story and dwells in long, lyrical moments when, with the surest of hands, Becker repairs some of the most revered instruments on the planet — namely, Stradivari. There are just 650 of the violins left. What makes them so extraordinary? Musicians and scientists may puzzle over that question forever. In the meantime, Becker works — quietly, meticulously, instinctively. “We are caretakers of these instruments,” one of his clients tells him. “We move on, but these instruments continue to the next generation.” —SD
Doug Perrine | Hakai Magazine | December 20, 2022 | 1,500 words
It’s well known that many animals use tools to aid feeding and other tasks of life. Think: otters floating on their backs, cracking shells with rocks. You’d think it would be hard for whales to use tools, but as Doug Perrine reports at Hakai Magazine, humpbacks use what’s available to them — air and water — to form bubbles for a variety of activities. “I’m tempted to describe the air in a humpback’s lungs as a Swiss army knife because I’ve seen whales do so many different things with it,” he wrote. “It is not actually a tool collection though, but a storehouse of raw construction material with which the whale can fashion a variety of tools. Lacking free fingers and opposable thumbs, whales are unable to create and use tools in the same way as humans, but reveal their intelligence through the manner in which they utilize other body parts for tool production and use.” —KS
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The human fascination with psychedelics is nothing new. The earliest use of psychoactive plants dates back to 11,000 B.C. in Israel, with the brewing of beer, while some people theorize that the eating of magic mushrooms 20,000 years ago fostered the intellectual evolution of early humans (see: “stoned ape theory“). For Atmos, Amber X. Chen explores the current psychedelic renaissance’s effects on environmental activism, and how hallucinogenic drugs like LSD and psilocybin, and ancient plant medicine like ayahuasca, can stir change within individuals — and ultimately galvanize social movements.
It sounds incredibly positive on the surface, but not everyone who dabbles in such mind-altering journeys comes out the other side positively transformed. As research shows, psychedelics have enormous therapeutic potential, sure, but they also fuel right-wing movements, too (see: “‘QAnon Shaman“).
The use of psychoactive plants has its roots with Indigenous tribes, who’ve used them for healing and cultural practices for thousands of years. Before we push for the decriminalization of psychedelics and encourage their use to help stir climate activism, reports Chen, there are steps that need to be taken for these powerful, sacred plants to play a positive role in the environmental movement.
In a 2022 study that surveyed 240 people, mostly from Australia, the U.S., and the U.K., who had prior experience with psychedelics, researchers found more pro-environmental behaviors among participants who reported having had a previous mystical experience than those who had not. The researchers measured these behaviors based on a wide range of behaviors—anything from adopting a vegetarian diet and purchasing eco-friendly products to turning off your lights more regularly.
Before adding psychedelics to the climate action toolkit, we need to first plan for their conservation, prioritize Indigenous cultures, and place Indigenous peoples into leadership positions. This means respecting the wishes of Indigenous peoples: if a tribe or nation doesn’t want its plant medicines commercialized, we should not interfere. For those willing to share, we must not appropriate. Ultimately, we have to listen.
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