Sonos Ace review – a worthy new challenger for the premium headphone brands

85%

• VERDICT

The Sonos Ace headphones are an excellent first attempt with stunning audio quality, sleek and stylish design with features that will only improve over time. If you’re a Sonos customer already these should be your next headphones – if you’re not these are a great introduction to the brand.

Sonos has joined the big boys in the headphones game with its excellent new Sonos Ace noise cancelling headphones. It’s a departure from what the company usually produces but they’ve come up with a hit.

Up until now if you mentioned the big headphone brands you’d be talking about Bose, Sony, Sennheiser, Apple and JBL.

Sonos just wasn’t in the conversation. They were more focused on producing speakers and sound bars and multiroom systems to play music for everyone to enjoy.

Well that has all changed with the Sonos Ace which is built with premium materials and offers premium sound – they also have a premium price at $699.

For a first attempt the Sonos Ace headphones are an absolute hit.

They look and sound amazing.

On the design side, they are made from premium vegan leather in soft white or black.

They have luxuriously soft memory phone on the earcup and the headband so they fit comfortably without too much pressure on your ears.

Naturally, the headphones are adjustable with metal arms extending from the headband to ensure the precise fit.

The design reminded us of Apple’s AirPods Max.

The comfort level was high – even wearing them for an entire flight. They are remarkably light as well.

There is a matching hard case which is quite thin and easy to fit inside a bag.

One thing we noticed though was dirt and marks on the carry case – that’s what can happen when you have light coloured products.

On the audio side, the Sonos Ace knocks it out of the park. They’re priced in the same tier as the big headphones and easily hold their own.

The sound had a real authority without being over the top.

Its confidence was delivered with the subtlety of every note and the smashing of every cymbal, and the bass was a nicely balanced addition to complete the picture.

It really did offer superb detail – that crisp sound was evident at the high and mid-levels with vocals that were clear and precise.

Users can make some minor adjustments using the Sonos app with tweaks to the treble and bass, but we just left it alone – it sounded great out of the box.

There are some physical controls on the outside with easy to reach buttons that allow you to adjust the volume and switch to transparency mode and back to ANC.

Speaking of active noise cancellation, the Sonos Ace did a great job and of getting rid of the ambient noise.

It’s not the best ANC we’ve heard, those other premium brands seem to have nailed it, but Sonos has room for improvement.

The transparency mode, on the other hand, was outstanding and allowed us to hear everything quite clearly even without taking off the headphones.

It’s a great feature if you’re listening out for your flight being called for boarding or if you want to talk to someone or order a coffee and don’t want to take off the headphones to do it.

One feature that sets the Sonos Ace apart is the TV Audio Swap.

The idea here is if you have a Sonos Arc soundbar you can take the audio and bring them to the headphones without skipping a beat.

The ideal scenario would be you wanting to continue to watch a movie or play a game when everyone else goes to bed so you switch the sound from the Sonos Arc soundbar to the headphones using a direct Wi-Fi connection and still enjoy respectable surround sound whether it’s 5.1 or Dolby atmos.

We didn’t get a chance to review this feature but judging by other reviewers it offered respectable quality – when it worked.

Our understanding is that it took a couple of attempts for it to work but when it did the user can hear their movie or game in high quality and with a very low latency.

TV Audio Swap is not available for Android users at the moment and it will also be compatible with more soundbars in the future.

But we’re looking forward to another feature in the works called TrueCinema which can examine your viewing environment and create a surround sound effect as if there are numerous speakers around you.

On the battery side, the Sonos Ace provides an amazing 30 hours of playback.

And the good thing is if you need a fast charge, you can get three hours playback if you plug them in for just three minutes.

The Sonos Ace ANC Bluetooth headphones are available on June 5 and are priced at $699.

VERDICT

The Sonos Ace headphones are an excellent first attempt with stunning audio quality, sleek and stylish design with features that will only improve over time. If you’re a Sonos customer already these should be your next headphones – if you’re not these are a great introduction to the brand.