Sonos Era 300 vs Audio Pro C20: which wireless speaker is right for you?

[What Hi-Fi?]

Should you buy the Sonos Era 300 or the Audio Pro C20? We put them head to head to find out how they compare.

Sonos Era 300 vs Audio Pro C20: which wireless speaker is right for you? : Read more

 

[Terry Webb]

I would go for the Audio Pro C20. The two line inputs would seal the deal for me.

 

[Krautsalat]

The C20 certainly sounds better than the Era and is way more versatile. That's why I sold my four Era 300s and bought four C20s after reading the review ... but there are three major caveats:

1) I run my speakers in stereo pairs, which sure makes the C20s sound phenomenal. But there comes the big problem: you can't run pairs via HDMI or optical, only single speakers. Bummer. Workaround: use RCA via an HDMI audio extractor.

2) The workaround above is absolutely necessary, since their performance via HDMI and optical PCM is abysmal. Even single speakers constantly drop the sound, and it happens to all four of them. Some serious handshake issue here.

3) Resolution, and that irks me the most. When streaming from the Tidal app via Airplay, I get an indicated 24 bit / 96 kHz stream which sounds great. When Streaming via Tidal Connect, the stream maxes out at 16/44.1, from both the Tidal app and the Audio Pro app. Normally Tidal connect should sound way better than Airplay, but on the C20 it doesn't even get close. Some implementation issue here, because the DAC can obviously handle 24 bit streams.

I opened support tickets on all the above issues awaiting response. I'm afraid though, they will end up going back.

 

[Tom Jones]

Agree with previous poster. C20 suffered from major connectivity issues in my house. Tech support was slow, and customer service was not particularly lovely when it inevitably wnt back. When it worked it was lovely, but just too flaky compared to my rock solid Sonos

 

[s-mart1]

I do not know what a C20 is. I bought an Era 300 three months ago. It was a bit of a 'punt'. I was looking for lossless quality without cables. My expectations were not that high. Using it for the first time made me smile. The detail and the presence where very good. The sound filled the room. Being used to stereo speakers it was hard to comprehend what Sonos had done.

I am pushing on now. I need to connect my old Dual CS 505-4 record deck for my vinyls, and my Arcam CD72 CD player to the system. I bought the adapter which works as long as you do not feed through any pre-amplification, be it a pre-amp or amplifier system; you get distortion when you try. However, without such an amp the Sonos volume does not reach as high as I desire. It is an ongoing issue. I might try to buy a 'soft' inline amp to see if the speaker can be boosted.

However, I am now committed to Sonos in terms of hifi. I am not really into surround sound except what comes out of my Sky Glass which is ok. I have ordered an addition Era 300 and cannot wait to experience the stereo result. I shall post a mini review once I have put it through it's paces. I am also hoping i can put a seperate audio feed (one CD player and one Phono) into each speaker.

I love to embrace the future of audio. I do wish that the vendors would try to remember the Vinyl and CD past which is still current for many of us audiophiles.

Mart