Sonos Ace Review: The Highly-Anticipated Headphones Are Here & Damn, They’re Good!

“They’re here! Fans have asked us for years to bring the Sonos experience to headphones — and we knew our first foray into the category needed to champion the type of innovation and sound experience Sonos has become synonymous with,” said Patrick Spence, CEO of Sonos.

True to his word, Spence and the Sonos team have knocked it out of the park with the launch of the first-ever Sonos over-ear headphones — because, damn they’re good. I’ve spent the last month familiarising myself with the Sonos Ace headphones, but honestly, I didn’t need that much time to form an opinion on them; they impressed me from the very first listen.

The Sonos Ace headphones mark the brand’s long-awaited entry into the personal listening category. The brand is well known for being an innovator in sound and now, Sonos is using its audio and design expertise to transform the way we listen with headphones. With its reputation for delivering premium speakers with stellar sound quality, it’s no surprise the Sonos Ace is so impressive.

According to Sonos, the Ace headphones leverage everything the team has learned over two decades as an audio leader to bring stunning sound, sleek design and long-standing comfort to one of the largest and most popular audio categories worldwide.

Designed to offer the user superior sound on a personal level, the Sonos Ace headphones offer a range of features that bring the best of Sonos to headphones. The premium over-the-ear Bluetooth headphones feature breathtaking lossless and spatial audio, world-class Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and Aware Mode, as well as an immersive home theatre experience using Sonos’ new TrueCinema technology.

Two custom-designed drivers work to render each frequency with impeccable precision and clarity so you can enjoy every second of your favourite podcast, every note of your favourite song, and hear every detail of an important phone call. The sound quality of the Sonos Ace headphones is truly unmatched. Listening to music with these is akin to a religious experience. You get the pleasure of hearing every little detail the recording artist or producer intended and, oh my, is it glorious.

Even more for die-hard Sonos fans

For Sonos fans, the Ace comes with an extra card up its sleeve, ensuring the headphones shine when it comes to enjoying visual entertainment too. Transport yourself into your own private cinema with the surround sound home theatre experience and enjoy every epic moment of your favourite movie, while giving your household the gift of quiet.

The Ace enables you to instantly swap the TV audio from a compatible Sonos soundbar to Sonos Ace with just the tap of a button. Spatial audio with Dolby Atmos envelops you in dramatically detailed sound from all directions and dynamic head tracking keeps you centred in the action even if you need to grab a blanket or reach for the snack bowl.

What’s more, Sonos’ all-new TrueCinema technology promises to further enhance your viewing experience by precisely mapping your space, and then rendering a complete surround sound system for a listening experience so realistic you’ll forget you’re wearing headphones.

This time, it’s personal

For this first entry into the headphone world, Sonos really made sure to concentrate on the small details that make all the difference when you’re frequently using headphones. I love the high level of personalisation that comes with the Sonos listening experience and the brand has dialled it up even further with the incorporation of these features into the Ace.

You can make personal listening even more personal with Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), or activate Aware mode when you want more awareness of your surroundings. This means walking on a busy street, while listening to music, just became safer and working in a busy office became a little bit easier.

While noise cancelling and ‘aware’ features aren’t exclusive to the Ace headphones — these features exist in many wireless headphone and earbud devices on the market — Sonos has done an excellent job of refining these features. Toggling these features on and off is easy using the Sonos app and it’s a seamless process that makes wearing headphones in public a little easier.

I have used many wireless earbuds and headphones with similar noise cancelling and ‘aware’ features but ultimately end up deactivating these because they’re unbearably annoying in practice. With the Sonos Ace you get easy one-touch noise-cancelling activation and ‘Aware’ mode so you can stay in tune with your surroundings. The dedicated button is located on the bottom of the right earcup, for easy access. For me, it’s a big plus that Sonos has opted for physical buttons for everything, with no tap or swipe gestures to memorise. If noise cancelling features don’t appeal to you, these can easily be toggled off and on in the Sonos app.

The app can also be used to turn on spatial audio and head tracking, to enjoy a cinematic private listening experience for occasions when you might otherwise need quiet in the TV room. I love this feature for those times when you want to enjoy a concert-like experience when watching a live-recorded music documentary at home. There’s nothing like turning your gaze slightly to the left to fully take in a legendary guitar solo and realising the audio has shifted to the corresponding ear in much the same way you’d experience it if you were there to see it live.

If you’re already a Sonos fan, and you’re the proud owner of a Sonos sound bar, then you can also make use of one of the headlining features of the Ace headphones; the ability to instantly transfer TV audio from a Sonos soundbar to the headphones with the slide of a button. To activate you simply hold down the ‘content key’ — a metal slider that also controls volume and play/pause — and within seconds, the soundbar beams over Dolby Atmos audio to the headphones, complete with spatial audio head tracking. So, if you’re listening to a podcast on your soundbar, and want to switch over to your headphones as you move to the kitchen to do some cooking, you can do so with one touch of a button, which is pretty cool.

Convenience features you’ll love

Of course, when talking about convenience and ease of use, battery life is a big one. Nothing ruins an experience with any tech device quite like lack-lustre battery life and mind-numbingly slow charging. The Sonos Ace promises to solve this bugbear with energy-efficient battery life and ultra-fast charging.

With the Sonos Ace headphones, you get a promised listening and talking time of up to 30 hours. I’ve been these headphones non-stop for everything from listening to music at home and on the go, gaming, and watching movies and the battery life is very impressive.

When it does come time to charge the device, ultra-fast charging ensures you’ll never miss a beat. If you’ve forgotten to charge your headphones and are heading out the door to catch a flight, don’t stress, a quick 3-minute charge (using the included USB-C cable) will give you 3 hours of battery life.

As I mentioned, Sonus has thankfully resisted the urge to go with touch controls on the Ace headphones, opting for physical buttons instead. I find touch controls to be very finicky and more trouble than they’re worth in everyday practice so these are a welcome return to old-school mechanics for me.

On the left earcup is a button for power and Bluetooth pairing, and the right earcup has a single button to cycle through the noise-cancelling modes. It also has a multi-functional slider/button (‘content key’) that is the real star of the show. You can slide it up and down to change the volume and press it a couple of different ways to control playback (pause, play, skip, answer calls etc).

Another convenient feature I love is Bluetooth Multipoint. Giving you the option to connect to two sources simultaneously and jump from one connected device to another, for example from a laptop to your smartphone.

Premium build quality and comfort

In true Sonos fashion, the Sonos Ace headphones exude luxury and sophistication. Sonos has a reputation for designing sophisticated, minimalist products that blend into the home without drawing attention to themselves. The Ace headphones fit into that design aesthetic quite nicely too.

When designing the Ace headphones, Sonos says it set out to create the most comfortable premium headphones yet. During development, Sonos pledged to do more work on fit and comfort than anyone in the industry to make sure it fits a variety of different heads and ears — on both men and women. All that work seems to have paid off because there’s no denying these headphones are supremely comfortable. I’ve worn these for hours with no fatigue issues, and they’re easily the most comfortable headphones I’ve ever worn.

The pleather-coated memory foam ear cushions are magnetic and easily removable, giving your headphones a longer lease on life should you need to replace the ear cushions a few years down the road. The ear cushions are soft and plush, fitting comfortably over the entire ear, with barely noticeable clamping pressure. A fingerprint-resistant coating on the exterior of the earcups helps to reduce smudges — particularly helpful for the black pair — ensuring your headphones are always looking fresh.

Adding to the superior comfort of the Sonos Ace headphones is an adjustable memory foam headband. The headband boasts varying levels of padding to avoid putting too much pressure on any one section of your head. The Ace headphones are also impressively lightweight. At 312g they are lighter than the AirPods Max at 384.8g, and you can feel the difference in hand. There’s not much metal throughout the construction of these headphones, which undoubtedly contributes to the lighter overall weight.

I particularly like how the hinges and joints are concealed in the body of the headphones; it creates a more elevated look and there’s the added bonus that my long hair won’t get caught while putting them on or removing them in a hurry.

With so many finer details taking the spotlight on these headphones, it’s clear that Sonos sweated the small stuff when crafting the Sonos Ace. There are so many ‘nice touches’; like the fact that the mesh in each earcup is a different shade to more clearly distinguish between left and right. Another nice touch is the matching fabric carrying case, complete with a magnetic travel pouch that holds the USB-C charging cable and USB-C to 3.5mm cable that both come in the box.

Everything considered, with the Sonos Ace you’re getting sensational Bluetooth, over-ear noise-cancelling headphones, that are entirely worth the splurge.

The Sonos Ace headphones are now available in South Africa in both Black and Soft White at a price of R12,999.

Review originally published on WomenStuff.co.za.