Sonos Ace headphone review: Outstanding, Unique and pricey

As a company renowned for their multi-room speaker systems and the outstanding quality of those speakers, it’s a big call for Sonos to branch into new areas. The Sonos Ace are high-quality over-ear headphones that compliment the Sonos ecosystem like no other product I’ve used.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say the Sonos Ace headphones are one of the greatest additions to an Ecosystem I’ve seen – perhaps rivalling the Apple Watch as an add on to the iPhone.

But I’ll get to that.

First up, these are $699 – Yes, that’s cheaper than Apple’s AirPods Max – but for $699 you’ll get change buying the best overall headphones you can get in the Sony WH1000’s or Bose QC Ultra’s.

And that’s important. The prospective buyer of these would have to be the owner of an existing Sonos system, more specifically a Sonos Soundbar – that’s where you get the value from this purchase, unquestionably.

Sound Quality of the Sonos Ace headphones

Epic. I’ve always thought Sonos had the secret sauce for audio, and that’s evident from the get-go with these.

Forget all the fancy features and just throw them on and pair them for a wonderful sound. Rich, clear and natural sound. Listening to the keys of a single piano play in a studio at the start of a song had me transported to the audio booth as if I was there.

I didn’t get a sense of overwhelming bass, which is pleasing for an out-of-the-box experience but, as I’ll explain later you can adjust that within the app if it’s what you’re looking for.

There’s really not much more to say other than to re-affirm that they’d want to sound this good given the price tag. Bottom line though, you won’t spent $699 and be disappointed in the sound.

Sonos Ace Noise Cancelling

Critical to a great listening experience is the noise cancelling efforts of the Sonos Ace.

Thanks to a true over and around the ear cup with a soft, gentle even, padding around it – there’s a serious level of passive noise cancelling. You don’t realise it until you then switch to aware mode for passthrough / Transparency, while in full noise cancelling mode there’s a very strong performance.

I have been flying a lot, and have a lot of flights ahead, but sadly haven’t taken these on a plane yet, but, from base-line testing in my studio and office environment I think it’s clear Sonos has nailed this and would likely rival both Sony and Bose for their noise cancelling performance.

How do the Sonos Ace headphones feel?

Importantly, for a brand new make and model of headphones, these are engineered for comfort and they nail it.

Sitting here now writing this listening to Dire Straits and it’s a strange sensation of almost forgetting they’re on. Soft over the head, and soft on the ears – it’s the perfect balance.

I can’t imagine 8 hours of listening being a punish in any way.

App Controls

While Sonos has copped some flack for their recent app update, I think coming back to it for the first time in a while – it’s a slick experience.

Pairing these was easy, linking music library services easy, and controls all where i’d expect them to be.

These don’t feel like headphones you’d come back to the app over and over again for to be honest. Tune your EQ setting and enjoy.

There’s only really three controls on the actual headphones, the power button, the noise cancelling/aware toggle and the volume switch.

Brilliantly they area also easy to wear in terms of getting left and right correct.

The Sonos logo is embossed in just the right ear cup, and the inside of the right ear also has a different colour fabric inside.

Simple, and smart.

Home Theatre and TV Audio Swap with Sonos Ace

Party trick anyone?

Hell nah – Sonos’s TV Audio Swap is the single greatest feature of a headphone I can remember – IF, and it’s a big if, IF you’re a Sonos soundbar user.

Working only with the largest Sonos Arc soundbar at the moment, but with functionality coming to other soundbars later this year – let me tell you, this ain’t no party trick. This is a game-changer.

Add your TV to TV Audio Swap and by simply long pressing in on the volume rocker switch your TV sound will be routed to your headphones. Muting the soundbar and giving you the full spatial audio experience from your TV.

The number of times I’ve gone to bed only to hear my son watching a movie downstairs. Or the number of times I’ve slipped into the man cave to watch the F1 at night so as not to wake anyone up.

NO MORE! Now, I sit on the lounge, enjoy the visual pleasure of the 100 inch Hisense TV that is the centre of our loungeroom, and press the button on the Sonos Ace headphones to bring the TV sound to me.

It’s so good that every single time i’ve done it I’ve had to take the headphones off to make sure the soundbar isn’t actually still playing.

TV remote volume controls still work, noise cancelling in effect, and head-tracking so If I look away it’s like the sound still comes from the direction of the actual TV.

Sheer and utter genius.

The single simplest reason to spend the $$ on these if you own a Sonos Arc soundbar. This is a marriage saver.

Our kids fight over the many TVs in this house, and then watch one thing in then next room to the other. No More, one can watch with headphones the other as normal. Boom.

I’m not joking, this justifies the price alone.

And I think Sonos know that. They don’t need to sell these to non Sonos families. They just need most Sonos soundbar owners to think yep, I need some decent headphones, and with that feature I’m sold.

Some more little things

I didn’t have the best luck getting them to turn off automatically, so lost a bit of battery that way, it’s more a feature of smartphone listening where the song will pause when you take them off. I found myself always taking the manual option to power them off.

The Removable cushion on each ear is genius, replaceable with ease – but why do we need this? Are they expecting these to degrade? I’ve never seen that issue on consumer headphones before.

Battery life is quoted at 30 hours, and I’ve no reason to doubt that – but haven’t had time to push them past that. If they’re dead, 3 minutes of charge gets you 3 hours of listening. That’s great.

The carry case is a cracker too. While they don’t fold up, which is my preferred option for a compact carry, the case is thin when flat, but has a fantastic little pouch for your cables which magnetically attaches to the spot inside the hoop of the headphones.

A heck of a lot of thought has gone into these, and it shows.

I can’t justify the $699 for the average user, but if you own a Sonos soundbar (initially the Arc is supported, but more will come), then these are a game-changer.

Outstanding design, quality and performance befitting the Sonos name.

Sonos Ace are available now.