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Sonos, the renowned audio company known best for its speakers, has finally revealed its first-ever pair of headphones, the Ace. We’ve known for some time that Sonos has been working on a pair of high-end headphones for a while now. I spent some quality time with the Sonos Ace at an NYC event recently and left impressed by the Ace’s comfort and ANC.
Sonos seems ambitious about their first-ever headphones. By pricing the Ace at $450, the company puts them among premium headphones like Sony’s WH-1000XM5 or Master & Dynamic’s MW75. CEO Patrick Spence said that comfort, ANC, and sound were the three design points Sonos wanted to hit with the Ace.
At 312g, these aren’t the lightest headphones you’ll come across. Sony’s flagship headphones are much lighter at 250g, but the memory foam in the headband and earcups make the Ace incredibly comfortable. I haven’t worn them for hours yet, but the weight distribution felt very balanced in the short time I had with them.
The Ace sports a thoughtful design. It uses as little metal as possible to not bump the weight up, along with extremely generous padding. The memory foam padding is wrapped with vegan leather for added comfort. The extenders and controls are the only two places with metal on these headphones, and I absolutely loved the extenders’ look and feel. They’re minimal and classy and help with adding a little flair to the cans.
I love that the extenders’ hinges are concealed inside the earcup—something you don’t see on many headphones. The Sonos team said this was done so the extender wouldn’t catch on your hair. I ran into this with JBL’s flagship, Live 770NC, which would aggressively tug at my hair whenever I tried to take it off.
The feature Sonos seemed most proud of and conducted not one but two sessions on is Ace’s ability to seamlessly work with the Sonos $900 Arc soundbar. The headphones sport a Control Key that handles playback, calls, and TV audio swap. It instantly switches audio from the Arc soundbar to the Ace when pressed and held. I was able to try this while watching Barbie and cycled the audio between the Arc and the Ace a few times. It’s a nice feature if you’re planning to invest in the Sonos ecosystem.
I was made to listen to 10-minute test audio while the room played pretty bass-heavy, low-end white noise on a bunch of Sonos 300 speakers that were scattered throughout the room. The noise-canceling on the Ace was excellent, and the ambient mode was equally efficient in helping me stay aware of my surroundings. I’m excited to give it a test outside of this controlled environment and in the real world.
As for battery life, Sonos claims 30 hours on a full charge with ANC and “25% more than that” with ANC off. The Ace is now available for pre-ordering on the Sonos website.
