Kudos: Comfortable, great battery life, solid audio performance, Atmos audio
Concerns: Very limited Sonos interoperability
It’s likely that most of the Sonos news you’ve been hearing lately surrounds the…shall we say…less-than-successful rollout of the company’s recent app update. The update was so problematic that it prompted company CEO, Patrick Spence, to issue a formal apology letter promising a timeline for fixes, along with regular, weekly updates to the app issuing improvements and bug fixes.
Part of the new app’s update was to allow connection of Sonos’ new wireless headphones, called Ace, a product launch that has been a bit overshadowed by all the recent negativity surrounding the app.
But app issues aside — and, spoiler, you don’t even need to use the Sonos app to enjoy the Ace! — I wanted to hear how Sonos’ technology transferred into a headphone and experience how they integrated these ’phones into a Sonos ecosystem.
Sonos claims that headphones were the number one thing its customers had been asking for, but not a single one of my customers had ever asked about Sonos headphones — and that includes now after they exist. I’ve also yet to see a pair out in the wild.
However, when I got the pre-briefing call to discuss the headphones, I immediately grasped the many possibilities that a Sonos headphone could provide, and I started thinking that, yeah, this is a headphone our channel could clearly get behind! With Sonos products being one of the few grab-and-go items we sell, Ace seemed like it could be an easy add-on sale opportunity for the CI channel. And much like Apple products, we know that when customers join the Sonos ecosystem, they are likely to stay there, adding additional products around the house, so a Sonos headphone that can tie into this ecosystem sounds like the perfect companion.
So, did the headphones live up to my expectations? Yes and no.
First Impressions
Sonos’ packaging is very similar across its lineup, and it always offers a very satisfying ASMR opening experience. I’ve opened hundreds of Sonos boxes, and tearing open those little strips — two in this case — that keep the box closed never fails to satisfy.
Opening the box lid, you’re greeted with a travel case wrapped in plastic protection. Sonos claims the case is “responsibly made” from 75% recycled felt made from plastic bottles, and it feels both soft and sturdy. From a practical standpoint, I loved that the case is thin enough to throw into a backpack or briefcase without dominating the space. Many of the “nice” headphone cases (such as my Mark Levinson No5909, review available online) are too big and bulky to really use on the go, but this strikes a perfect balance between protection and portability.
Inside the case is a small pouch that “snaps” into the case magnetically for holding the included cables, a USB C-to-USB C charging cable, and a USB C-to-mini-jack headphone cable. It’s a pet peeve of mine when companies don’t include everything you need to make a product work, in this case, no USB C charger.
The phones are available in black and white matte finishes that match the look of Sonos’ other speakers, and the styling looks very on-brand for Sonos while also being reminiscent of Sony and Apple headphone designs. The look is definitely more laid back than flashy, with no really “showy” design elements.
While the top of the band and the outer earcups are hard plastic, the headband and earpads are soft, foam-cushioned vegan leather. I had to look that up. Apparently, vegan leather “imitates actual leather by using synthetic materials or plant-based fibers like pineapple leaves, cactus, cork, and apple peels to get a similar consistency.” It sure felt like actual leather. The earpads are also wrapped in plush memory foam, which not only makes them softer on the ears, it helps to create a terrific sonic seal for better passive sound isolation.
To help identify left and right, the inner part of the right earcup has a silvery lining while the left has a black inner lining, along with a discreetly printed R and L. The leather earpads are removable and replaceable, with parts already being available on Sonos’ website for $49/pair.
The headband smoothly slides in and out on stainless-steel posts and stays securely in place, allowing you to get a good, tight, custom fit even if wearing a cap or glasses.
While not heavy, at 11 ounces the Aces aren’t especially light, either. As a comparison, the Mark Levinson No5909s come in at 12 ounces and feel heavier, especially on the head. However, two other popular ‘phones, Sony’s WH-1000XM5 and Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra, are a good bit lighter, weighing 8.8 and 8.9 ounces, respectively.
From an ergonomic standpoint, the one thing I didn’t love was how the headphones sit around my neck when I’m not listening to them. Instead of having the softly padded cups turning in to rest comfortably on my collar bones, the Ace cups turn out, putting the hard plastic backs against my collar bones, which isn’t great. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why they couldn’t have swiveled the other way; and this seems a bit of a design miss.
Features
As mentioned, using the Sonos app isn’t required to start listening to music; simply press and hold the power button on the left phone and pair them with your Bluetooth device and you’re off and listening. Ace supports Bluetooth 5.4 with AptX and Apple Lossless.
For those who have been struggling with the Sonos app recently, not having to use the app might be a plus. And for the first couple of weeks that I used them, I never even bothered connecting them to the Sonos app.
Beyond power on the left, there are two other buttons on the right ’phone for controlling Ace. One button toggles the noise canceling modes and triggers a phone’s voice assistant, and the other is a multi-function “Content Key” that controls playback, adjusts volume, and manages calls. Too many controls can be confusing, so I really appreciated the simplicity of this design, and I found the layout very intuitive. I never struggled to remember which control did what.
The Ace headphones have a multi-colored LED that changes colors depending on different states. Like the Sonos Move, it illuminates orange while charging, green when fully charged, white when on but not connected to Bluetooth, and blue when connected to Bluetooth. While it’s a small thing, I like the family consistency.
The 1060 mAh Lithium-ion battery is rated to provide up to 30 hours of listening time (24 with ANC on) and takes around three hours to get a full charge from zero. If you need a quick top-up on the go, the battery can be rapidly charged for three hours of listening in just three minutes.
For voice operation and active noise cancellation, Ace employs eight beamforming microphones. Out of the box, Ace only offers two ANC modes — Active and Aware. “Unlocking” a passive mode where ANC is off requires the Sonos app, where you can also check which of the three modes the headphones will use.
Within the app, you also have basic EQ (bass, treble, balance, and loudness) adjustments. You can also enable Head Tracking, which is described as “Sonos Intelligent Motion Processing with Dolby Head Tracking responds to your head movements. Best with spatial audio.” With this on, if you turn your head left, the music will shift to just the right headphone and vice-versa. I didn’t care for it and left it off.
The app also allows you to enable Bluetooth Multipoint, which lets two devices easily connect to the headphones and allows you to switch between them. This feature worked great, connecting to both my laptop and phone — you hear two Bluetooth chimes when powering the Ace on — so I’d have music playing from my laptop, and then easily be able to answer phone calls through the Ace. You can also enable/disable wear detection, where the music will automatically pause/play when you remove/put them on, and how the ’phones respond to phone calls when you put them on. The wear detection worked great for me, and I never had any issues with music stopping when it shouldn’t, even when wearing the Ace over a cap.
Finally, the app allows you to enable the Ace’s big (and only) Sonos integration feature, namely TV Audio Swap. With this you can pair the headphones to a Sonos soundbar, including the Arc, Beam, Beam 2, and Ray, allowing you to transfer audio from the bar to the headphones. Though I didn’t get a chance to test it, users report that the headphones can pair to two or more Sonos bars and that swapping audio will automatically detect the closest bar and start playing audio.
Performance
The earpads are firm yet supple, and even though there is very little swivel to the cups, they adapt to your head very well and create a terrific and comfortable seal around the ears, even when I was wearing glasses. I found them very comfortable to wear, even over extended periods, which is one of the most important features of a headphone.
If I were wearing them outside or while working out, I did find that my ears got very sweaty under the “vegan leather.” However, for regular indoor use, I never really had any heat issues. I also found that the band did a good job of holding the ’phones in place.
The Noise Control button lets you quickly switch between the ANC modes, and it plays a slightly different tone for each mode, though I primarily used only ANC or Aware. While at work, Aware let me wear the ’phones and still listen for incoming calls or someone coming into the store, and on job sites let me hear if anyone was calling for me.
I found the ANC to be terrific. Between the fit and seal of the phones providing passive isolation and the ANC, it lowered the din inside the gym to a low background noise, and steady noises like fan and AC hums are all but vanquished. Toggling between Aware and ANC was like sealing yourself in a sonic vault. Subjectively I felt that Ace outperformed the ANC of my Levinson No5909s, however, it wasn’t quite as good as the Sony WH-1000XM5 or Bose QuietComfort Ultra. For commuters or frequent fliers, Ace is more than up to the task of keeping you isolated.
I really liked the multi-function Content Key, and short of it occasionally pausing the music when I was trying to skip forward, it always worked great. It was also super-intuitive to raise/lower the volume. I felt the button/slide had a nice feel, with the right bit of resistance, and it kind of reminded me of that tactile experience of using my Lutron Sunnata (RA3) dimmers.
Sonos says the sound tuning process for the Ace headphones involved more than 1000 content creators from all kinds of music genres, and they created custom-designed 40mm dynamic drivers specifically for the Ace.
I found the audio to be laid back and neutral; neither bass-heavy nor bright. This is not a criticism, but rather to say that the Ace walks a really nice line down the middle of the audio spectrum. There is bass to be sure, but it is never like having a subwoofer in your ear or too overbearing. This also makes it easier to listen to these for long stretches without the audio becoming fatiguing and makes it easy to appreciate fine details. There was a moment in a live version of Bill Evans’ “My Foolish Heart” with some light background chatter and coughing that made me snap my head around and make sure someone wasn’t behind me.
I found that the TV Audio Swap feature worked very well and reliably. To engage, you just press and hold the Content Key, and audio shifts from the bar to the ’phones, setting the Ace volume to 60. To send audio back to the bar, just press and hold the button again or you can go into the app and swap it.
If you missed that, the audio ceases to play out of the bar after transfer and only plays out of the headphones, making it an either/or proposition rather than giving the option for both.
Interestingly, when returning audio to the bar from the Content Key, it lowers the Arc’s volume down to 15 regardless of where it was before, but if you transfer it back into the app, it asks what level you would like it to be after the transfer.
The Ace performed terrifically when playing TV audio, and even though there isn’t a voice raise/enhancement feature, I never felt the need, as dialog was always clear and easily understandable.
The headphones support Dolby Atmos audio, and I have to say that immersive content sounded great on them. (Whether it was a limitation of the Ace, my iPhone 14, or the streaming apps, I could not get any streaming services — Netflix, Disney+, Hulu — to play Atmos content from my iPhone to the Ace.) I never really got a sense of “surround sound,” in that sounds seemed to come from behind me or overhead, but rather a better sense of sonic immersion. Things with echoes or reverb, like Rey climbing down into the destroyed Star Destroyer in The Force Awakens, had tons of spaciousness. And you could hear the reverb and decay of Taylor’s singing along with the big width of the crowds in The Eras Tour.
The Ace also did a great job of delivering fine details, like the sounds of raindrops plipping on a metal roof in Blade Runner 2049. And sonic elements that would normally be nearly indistinguishable, like background announcements in BR2049 or the NASA chatter in Gravity were far easier to discern with the Ace on than when listening through the bar.
Movies that have big height effects like Kong: Skull Island, Ready Player One, or the Medusa scene from the Clash of the Titans remake delivered big, full sound with the sense that objects were moving and traveling around.
If I wandered too far away from the Arc, the headphones could develop a slight lip-sync delay, which was easily resolved by transferring audio back to the Arc and then back to the Ace.
The TV Audio Swap is the real ace up the Ace’s sleeve, and it makes the most of it.
Sonos-ish
When I heard about Sonos creating headphones, my mind ran giddy with all the possibilities!
The first, most obvious, killer app integration to me would have been with simultaneous headphones and soundbar listening with two or more people to solve the hearing issue many couples face where one viewer needs to have the volume jacked to hear. With the Ace in Aware mode, the couple could watch at comfortable levels for each viewer and still talk to each other if desired. Or, you could turn the ANC on and act like the other person isn’t there, your call. But, no.
Or what if you wanted to have two pairs of Ace headphones connected to a single Sonos bar for private late-night listening, allowing each person individual volume and tone settings, say, if they are trying not to wake a baby? Again, no.
Review: Mark Levinson No.5909 Wireless Audiophile Headphones
Another possibility would be where the Ace could be used in a Sonos system like any other component, say, grouping it with other speakers. Nope.
Or say you are out of the house listening to something and when you get home you want to easily transfer that Ace content to your home Sonos speakers. Sorry.
Or even something basic like being able to choose the headphones’ music within the Sonos app using any playlists or queues you’ve already set up. Uh-uh.
Currently, Ace won’t do any of these things. Will it be able to in the future? [Shrugs]
I asked Sonos all these questions, and the short answer was, “We’ve conducted user research and learned the most common use case for wearing headphones with a home theater is for viewing content alone, so you don’t disturb others in your household. We’ll continue to learn how customers are using Sonos Ace and explore additional features over time.”
Sonos did say that a new Ace feature, TrueCinema, will be “coming soon.” This will “use the soundbar to capture the acoustics of the room and adapts the binaural rendering on Sonos Ace to create a more realistic experience. It makes it so there’s a deeper connection between what you’re seeing in the room around you and what you’re hearing in your headphones.”
Someone asked me if I thought the Sonos Ace headphones were worth the price, and I had to stop and think for a second. At a $449 retail, are these compelling enough for non-Sonos users to want to buy them? I don’t think so. Especially with Sony’s fantastic WH-1000XM5 selling for around $295 and Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra on sale for $349. Are they compelling enough that Sonos users will feel they need to buy them? With the currently limited integration to just solo listening with a soundbar, maybe. The long and short of it is that the Ace headphones sound and perform great, but so do a lot of other headphones, for less money. Without a big Sonos hook, I’m just not sure that is enough to justify the purchase all on its own.
If you like to watch or game alone while your partner/family is sleeping, and you have a Sonos bar, Ace will check a lot of boxes for you!
800-680-2345; sonos.com
Product Specs:
- Custom-designed 40mm dynamic drivers
- Bluetooth 5.4 with AptX and Apple Lossless (ALAC)
- Eight microphones used for noise cancellation and voice calls
- Supports Dolby Atmos and Sony Reality Audio 360 spatial audio
- 30-hour battery using Bluetooth with ANC on; rapid charge provides 3 hours listening time in 3 minutes
- Includes travel case, USB C-to-USB C charging cable, USB C-to-mini headphone cable
Dimensions and Weight: 7.52 x 6.3 x 3.35-inches (HxWxD); Weight: 11 ounces
