There's a lot riding on the new $450 Sonos Ace headphones. With demand for the company's speakers and sound bars cooling since the rise of the pandemic, Sonos could use a blockbuster product, or at least a strong debut in a massive product category. The Ace could certainly end up being that, but these headphones arrive under the shadow of Sonos' recent app redesign, which has angered many customers who were left without many features after the update.
Sonos has promised to restore those software functions in the coming weeks, but the whole situation – and the unshakeable feeling that the app's overhaul was rushed – has shaken trust between the audio brand and some of its most loyal customers. This is No where Sonos wanted to find itself in the run-up to what CEO Patrick Spence described as its most requested new device to date. But this is where we are now, as the Ace headphones are available for pre-order ahead of their June 5 launch.
Last week, the company hosted media in New York City for a first look at the Sonos Ace. I was able to try out the noise-canceling headphones (not for long enough to form a serious judgment on the sound quality) and experience their main feature, which is the ability to instantly transfer TV audio from a Sonos soundbar to the headphones with the push of a button. a button. The Ace headphones support spatial audio and head tracking, providing a private cinematic listening experience for those moments when you would otherwise need silence in the TV room. (Spatial audio can also be used during regular music listening.)
During the briefing, I sat down with Spence to talk about the headphones, which he says have been requested by “tens of thousands” of customers. Rumors about Sonos entering this space have circulated for many years. There were many prototypes along the way, but the Ace hardware you see here went through a development period of around two years. And they certainly borrow some ideas from their contemporaries.
These look like what you'd get if you put Sony's WH-1000XM5 and Apple's AirPods Max in a blender. The vegan leather earpads are magnetic and easily removable, although Sonos adds a few touches of its own; The interior is color coded so you can easily tell which goes which side. There's a fingerprint-resistant coating on the outside of the earbuds to reduce smudges, which is particularly helpful for the black pair. And the memory foam headband has different levels of padding to avoid putting too much pressure on any section of your head.
Fortunately, the Ace are much lighter than the AirPods Max. There's not as much metal throughout, but they still feel great together. And in my ears they felt wonderfully comfortable. “We've put more work into this product than anyone in the industry to make sure it fits a variety of different heads and ears, both men and women, and I think these will be the most comfortable premium headphones yet,” Spence . he told the media.
Try as I might, I couldn't find any obvious flaws in the first-generation hardware in the short time I spent with them. Maybe they'll reveal themselves when I review the Ace, but on first impression, it's clear that Sonos cared about the small details. (One more example: inside the fabric case there is a bag for the USB-C and headphone cables that also It attaches magnetically.) The controls are also well done, with physical buttons for everything and no tap or swipe gestures to memorize.
But if you were expecting the Sonos Ace to inherit the same features as the company's home audio speakers, you'll be 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 will need the new and divisive app to change settings or adjust the equalizer, and although I have long dreamed of some. The smart automatic switching between headphones and speakers every time you get home, that's not there either.
Right now, the Ace's big Sonos trick is its ability to receive audio from the company's sound bars for private listening. (Only the flagship Arc model will support this feature at launch, with Beam Gen 2, Beam and Ray coming later.) You hold down the “content key,” which is the metal slider that also controls volume and play/pause, and within a couple of seconds, the soundbar streams Dolby Atmos audio to the headphones, complete with tracking. head spatial audio.
This works for any input device that runs through the sound bar. Transmission boxes? Sure. Game consoles? Check. You can walk around the house and still listen to a sports game in the background while you clean or concentrate on other things. TV Audio Swap will be available exclusively to people with iOS devices at launch, and Android support for this important feature will be available “soon.” Android users can therefore take advantage of better Bluetooth audio (thanks to aptX), while the iOS side enjoys the main home theater trick.
Stereo content is downmixed by default in home theater mode, but you can always turn off spatial audio if you prefer to listen to proper stereo without applying any magic. Sonos sound guru Giles Martin told me that the company is being “careful” with how aggressively it virtualizes stereo. The head tracking effect is quite subtle because, as Martin pointed out, if it's too obvious or gimmicky, people will probably just turn it off. The headphones can detect when you've gotten up to get something from the refrigerator, and in those situations, head tracking is temporarily disabled until you're stationary again.
All of the heavy audio processing and binaural encoding is done on the soundbar, but here's something interesting: Sonos is using Wi-Fi to stream audio to the headphones in this home theater mode. However, it is not without losses. One of the company's engineers told me it's 345kbps and also confirmed that this Wi-Fi streaming eats up battery life, which is normally rated at 30 hours (with ANC on). But Sonos doesn't share battery estimates for home theater playback, in part because the headphones support fast charging if you ever run them down.
Private listening between TVs (or streaming devices) and headphones is by no means a new concept; you can listen to Apple TV with Apple AirPods. Roku has included a headphone jack on many of its remotes for years. And you can pair Bluetooth headphones with any number of Google TVs.
But Sonos believes the Ace can take immersion to a level far beyond its competitors, and this is partly due to a new feature the company calls TrueCinema. Your sound bar will perform a calibration of the room's acoustic qualities, sort of like TruePlay, while the headphone microphones will help identify your seating position and tailor spatial audio to your unique space. In theory, this data will make 3D spatial audio surround sound feel even more convincing and like you're not wearing headphones. I'll need more hands-on time to determine if TrueCinema really makes a difference. As things stand, the feature won't roll out until later this year.
Can Sonos really go toe-to-toe with Bose and Sony in active noise cancellation? Will the Ace's awareness/transparency mode feel as natural as the AirPods Max, which remain undefeated in that department? And how will the sound quality improve after long listening time?
Stay tuned for our full review of the Sonos Ace in the coming days, and if you're curious about anything in particular, feel free to leave a comment.
Photography by Chris Welch/The Verge
