Sonos ace headphones hands-on: Our early review

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It’s taken the venerable sound company its sweet time to get here, but it’s finally happening. Sonos is launching the Sonos ace, its first pair of wireless headphones, in the coming weeks as it looks to capture a share of the burgeoning headphones market.

The company’s most requested product, the Sonos ace is a pair of premium active noise-cancelling over-ear wireless headphones that will compete in the high-end audio market against the likes of Apple’s AirPods Max and Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra. 

A pair of high-fidelity lossless wireless headphones, Sonos ace’s killer feature is that they turn into surround sound home theatre headphones for your TV at the press of a button, integrating seamlessly into the Sonos ecosystem and Sonos’ line of soundbars, starting first with the Sonos arc.

The Independent was one of the first to see and listen to the Sonos ace headphones at a press briefing, and we’ve got some initial thoughts. Here’s everything you need to know about Sonos’ first pair of headphones, from release date to features to price.  

The Sonos ace headphones are a good-looking pair of headphones with a matte finish and stainless steel accents. They come in either Sonos’ signature white or black and boast plush vegan leather ear cups that felt extremely comfortable during our short time wearing them – never getting too hot on our ears or exerting too much pressure on the top of our head. There’s no hinge, meaning it can’t fold away, but it does have the benefit of not snagging, creating a better seal. 

They feature custom 40mm dynamic drivers and a ported acoustic architecture that Sonos says enhances the bass response of each driver for greater depth, as well as lossless audio and Dolby Atmos for spatial audio. Sonos took us through a soundscape of songs and audio dramas, and we could really hear the depth and expansive soundstage, clarity and bass response.   

Like every pair of wireless headphones out there right now, the Sonos ace headphones feature active noise-cancelling (ANC) tech that uses eight beam-forming microphones to cancel out external sound, and it was really quite good on our first listen. We were really wowed by the headphones’ aware mode, however. There was no audible hiss, we could hear every conversation in the room with the headphones on, and sound came through to our ears almost as if we weren’t wearing headphones at all.     

But home theatre is really the killer feature. Drawing on the company’s prowess in the home theatre industry, Sonos has essentially made the ace headphones a private soundbar just for your ears. A feature that currently only works if you have a Sonos arc soundbar, you can swap the TV audio from the Sonos arc to the Sonos ace with the press of a button on the side of the headphones. They feature the same Dolby Atmos support that you get with a Sonos soundbar, we were really put in the centre of the action when listening to Our Planet II. The nature sounds could be heard all around us, while David Attenborough’s narration filled our head. Sonos says it will be bringing its TruePlay-like feature to the Sonos ace in a future update – this maps your room to give you the best surround sound experience. 

We’re not a huge fan of touch controls, so we were glad to see Sonos went with buttons and sliders instead. The playback controls sit on the right ear cup, with a content key slider letting us control the volume by pushing it up or down, while a single press pauses and resumes content. A long press switches the TV audio to the headphones and back again. It was seamless, happening in a snap. A second button switches between active noise cancellation and aware mode. Lossless audio works over Bluetooth or USB-C and is compatible with the Qualcomm Snapdragon Sound AptX Lossless and Apple Lossless Audio codecs.

In terms of battery life, Sonos says you get 30 hours of playback on a single charge, that’s longer than both the AirPods Max and Bose QC Ultra, but the same as the Sony WH-1000XM5.

We didn’t get much time to explore the new Sonos app with the Sonos ace, but you’re able to switch from stereo mode to spatial mode when listening to your TV. The company’s new app, released on 7 May, has been criticised by users, with Sonos rolling out the app without some of its core features and de-prioritisation of vision-impaired accessibility.

The Sonos ace headphones launch on 5 June and cost £449, which puts them in direct competition with Apple and Bose’s high-end headphones. Our full review will be coming shortly.

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Looking for top-rated audio gear? Check out our round-up of the best wireless headphones