The new $450 Sonos Ace headphones have a lot going for them. With demand for the company’s speakers and soundbars cooling since the pandemic boom, Sonos could use a hit product — or at least a strong debut in the mass product category. The Ace certainly may be, but these headphones come under the shadow of Sonos’ recent app redesign, which has angered many customers who are missing out on many features since the update.
There’s Sonos promised to restore those program functions in the coming weeks, but the whole situation — and the lingering feeling that an overhaul of the app was headed out the door — has eroded trust between the audio brand and its most loyal customers. this no Sonos wanted to be at the forefront of what CEO Patrick Spence described as its most requested new device ever. But now that the Ace headphones are up for pre-order before they go on sale on June 5th, we are.
Last week, the company hosted media in New York for a first look at the Sonos Ace. I got to test out the noise-canceling headphones — not long enough to form any serious judgments about sound quality — and experience their head-up feature. a button. Ace headphones support surround sound and head tracking, and deliver a cinematic private listening experience for when you need silence in the TV room. (Spatial sound can also be used when listening to regular music.)
During the briefing, I sat down with Spence to discuss the headphones, which have been requested by “tens of thousands” of customers. Rumors of Sonos entering this space have been swirling for years. There were many prototypes along the way, but the Ace hardware you see here went through a nearly two-year development cycle. And they certainly borrow some ideas from their contemporaries.
They’re similar to what you’d get if you put Sony’s WH-1000XM5 and Apple’s AirPods Max in a blender. The ear pads are magnetic and easily removable, though Sonos has some thoughtful touches of its own; the interior is color coded so you can easily tell which side it’s on. There’s a fingerprint-resistant coating on the outside of the headphones to reduce smudges – especially useful for the black pair. The memory foam headband has different levels of padding to avoid putting too much pressure on any part of your head.
Unfortunately, the Ace is lighter than the AirPods Max. There’s not quite as much metal in there, but they still feel really good together. And they felt incredibly comfortable in my ears. “We’ve done more than anyone else in the industry to make sure this product fits a variety of heads and ears — both men and women — and I think it’s going to be the most comfortable premium headset ever,” Spence told the media.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find any obvious flaws in the first-generation hardware in my short time with them. Perhaps they’ll reveal themselves once you review the Ace, but from first impressions it’s clear that Sonos has sweated the small details. (Another example: inside the fabric carrying case is a pouch for USB-C and headphone cables also magnetically attached.) Controls are also done right, with physical buttons for everything and tap or swipe gestures to remember.
But if you were expecting the Sonos Ace to inherit the same functionality as the company’s home audio speakers, you’ll be a little disappointed. These do not play music over Wi-Fi. The best you’ll get is aptX Adaptive on modern Android devices for higher bitrate Bluetooth streaming from compatible music services. You can’t group the Ace with Sonos speakers or set the headphones as their own ‘zone’ in the app – yes, you’ll need a separate new app to change settings or adjust the EQ – and while I’ve long wished for some, the headphones and speakers when you get home between intelligent automatic transmission, which is also not available.
Currently, the Ace’s one big Sonos-y trick is its ability to receive audio from the company’s soundbars for private listening. (Only the flagship Arc will support this feature, with the Beam Gen 2, Beam, and Ray coming later.) You press and hold the “content button” — which is also a metal slider that controls volume and play/pause — and after a few seconds inside the soundbar is delivered to the headphones via Dolby Atmos audio, and spatial audio is complemented by head tracking.
This works for any input device that goes through the sound bar. Streaming boxes? Of course. Game consoles? Check it out. You can walk around the house and keep listening to a sports game in the background while you clean or focus on other things. TV Audio Swap will only be available to people with iOS devices, and Android support for this key feature is coming “soon.” So Android users can take advantage of better Bluetooth sound (thanks to aptX), while the iOS side enjoys a home theater gimmick.
Stereo content is mixed by default in home theater mode, but if you want to hear proper stereo without applying any wizardry, you can always turn off surround sound. Giles Martin, Sonos’ sound engineer, told me the company is “cautious” about how aggressively it virtualizes stereo. The head-tracking effect is quite subtle because, as Martin points out, if it’s too obvious or gimmicky, people will likely turn it off. The headphones can detect that you’re standing up to grab something from the fridge, and in that case head tracking is temporarily disabled until you’re still again.
All the intensive audio processing and binaural encoding is done on the soundbar side, but here’s something interesting: Sonos does use Wi-Fi to stream audio to headphones in this home theater mode. However, it is not without loss. One of the company’s engineers told me it was 345kbps and also confirmed that this Wi-Fi stream eats up battery life, which is typically rated at 30 hours (with ANC enabled). But Sonos doesn’t share battery estimates for home theater playback — in part because the headphones support fast charging if they ever run out.
Personal listening between TVs (or streaming devices) and headphones is hardly a new concept; You can listen to Apple TV with Apple AirPods. Roku has included a headphone jack in many of its remotes for years. You can pair Bluetooth headphones with any number of Google TVs.
But Sonos believes the Ace can take immersion to a much higher level than its competitors, thanks in part to a new feature the company calls TrueCinema. Your soundbar will calibrate the acoustic qualities of the room – such as TruePlay – and the microphones in the headphones will help you pinpoint your seating position and tailor the surround sound to your unique space. In theory, this data will make 3D spatial audio surround sound more convincing and feel like you’re not wearing headphones at all. I need more hands-on time to determine if TrueCinema really makes a difference. This feature will not be available until the end of this year.
Can Sonos really go toe-to-toe with Bose and Sony in active noise cancellation? Will the Ace’s alert/transparency mode sound as natural as the undefeated AirPods Max in this department? How will the sound quality improve after a long listening period?
Stay tuned for a full review of the Sonos Ace in the coming days, and feel free to leave a comment if you’re interested in anything in particular.
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge