Note: This review was first published on 1 August 2024 and was updated on 15 August 2024 to reflect the added TV Audio Swap support for Android devices and the Beam and Ray soundbars.
The Ace marks Sonos' entry into the wireless headphone space. Photo: HWZ
When news first came out about Sonos’ first stab at wireless headphones, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Would they sound good? Would they be priced at a premium? What would they bring to the table that would make them worthy additions to the Sonos lineup and the overall heritage of the brand?
After spending the past couple of weeks listening to music, working, and watching movies with the new Sonos Ace, I think, yes, Sonos definitely has something worth considering, even if they are not cheap. Do they work like the rest of the Sonos ecosystem? No, not really. But are they good? Yes, mostly. Let’s dive into the review now.
The TL;DR version:
An impressive first attempt by Sonos, even if it’s pricey and misses the mark in a few areas.
Note: You can find the Sonos Ace on Amazon, Lazada, and Shopee.
In the box
The Ace doesn't fold, so while the case may be slim, it is still takes up a fair bit of space. Photo: HWZ
Given the premium pricing, I did expect a little more from Sonos’ packaging for the Ace. As it is, the packaging seems a little minimal and bare.
Inside the box, you’ll find the Ace headphones nestled within a slim and nondescript case, with a little removable storage case that attaches to the inside with magnets. You get a pair of cables (one USB-C to USB-C, and one USB-C to 3.5mm aux), which can be stored inside the above-mentioned removable storage case.
While these are wireless headphones by design, you can still have wired playback using either cable with digital or analogue sources. It would have been nice if Sonos had thrown in an airline headphone adaptor, but no luck there, so frequent fliers might need to source their own.
Although the case is slim, it does have quite a large footprint. This is because the Ace doesn’t fold. Users with smaller bags will want to take note of this. Another minor niggle here is that the Ace will only fit into the case if its headband is fully retracted. This can get a bit annoying if you need to frequently put the Ace back into storage when out and about.
Getting started
The Sonos app is easy to use and has decent customisability for the Ace. Photo: HWZ
For those expecting setting up the Ace to be just as simple as how you would set up any other Sonos product, this is where we think that Sonos fell short in the user experience department, though through no fault of their own.
Getting started with the Ace is much like any other wireless headphones. The Ace goes into pairing mode the first time you power them up and once you connect them to your smartphone, you can customise them using the Sonos companion app. Customisability for the Ace is decent. You can quickly and easily toggle features like Noise Control, Head Tracking, and Wear Detection. However, audiophiles won’t appreciate that the only equaliser options you get are simple bass and treble sliders.
Wear and controls
The Ace is well-built and looks and feels like a high-end premium headphone. Photo: HWZ
Visually, the Ace looks like Sonos took cues from the stainless-steel slider arms of the Apple Airpods Max, and the matte earcups from the Sony WH-1000XM5. The end result, in my eyes, is successful. It looks and feels expensive. I especially like the embossed Sonos logo on the earcups that reveal themselves when you look at it from the right angle. The Ace comes in two different finishes – black and soft white – both also matte, naturally. The carrying case also matches the colour of the headphones you choose.
I particularly like that the stainless-steel slider arms allow for precise adjustments while providing just enough clamping force for the ear cups to sit comfortably on the sides of my head. The ear cups are just a wee bit smaller than I’d have liked, so I’d recommend you try and wear-test these before you decide to splash the cash – especially if you think you have large ears.
The insides of the ear cups are colour-coded to help you remember which side is which (R and L are also printed on each if you still aren’t sure). The memory foam cushions are comfortable, but the vegan leather covering them isn’t the best option for hot and humid Singapore, but this is something common with most over-ear headphones. All in all, these are comfy headphones.
Speaking of the cushions, they are held in place with magnets, making them easy to pull off and replace. The Ace also isn’t rated for any form of water resistance, so this isn’t a set of headphones we’d recommend taking to the gym.
Credit to Sonos for giving us physical buttons instead of iffy touch controls. Photo: HWZ
Like all modern headphones, Ace has controls on the earcups. To their credit, the Sonos designers went with physical controls instead of iffy touch-sensitive panels. This gets two hearty thumbs-up from us.
The main button is the Content Key. It controls playback and can be slid up and down to adjust volume. If you press and hold down on it, it activates the Ace’s signature feature – TV Audio Swap (more on that later). The smaller button next to the Content Key toggles between transparency mode and active noise cancellation.
Elsewhere, the Ace comes with wear detection that automatically pauses playback when you remove them and automatically resumes when you put them back on. Multipoint Bluetooth is also supported, letting you connect with two sources at the same time. In my case, it was my phone and Windows laptop. Jumping between devices was quick and seamless.
Sound quality
Inside the cups are 40mm dynamic drivers. Photo: HWZ
When it comes to working as a set of headphones, the Ace isn’t all that different from competing headphones like the AirPods Max and Sony WH-1000XM5. Playback generally happens over a Bluetooth connection. The Ace supports Bluetooth 5.4 and supported codecs include SBC, AAC, aptX Adaptive, and aptX Lossless.
Sonos throws in 40mm drivers into each ear cup and they perform pretty well. I’m no audiophile, but they sound just as good as either the Sony WH-1000XM5 or the older WH-1000XM4, both of which I own and tested against. The bass is sufficiently punchy, and the vocals came through very clearly regardless of what I was playing. I’ve recently been going on a bit of a Tokyo City pop binge, and those tracks sounded brilliant through the Ace.
Like the AirPods Max, the Ace also comes with spatial audio support. Though this worked reasonably well for music, its impact was most noticeable during movies. With spatial audio enabled, Atmos content like Top Gun: Maverick and Avengers: Endgame was a treat.
Active noise cancellation is pretty good, but I still feel the Sonys – even with the older WH-1000XM4 – are superior. But I’m nitpicking really, because the ANC is easily one of the best I’ve heard. However, the Ace flips the table on the Sonys when it comes to its transparency mode. The Ace’s transparency mode sounds noticeably more natural and believable than the Sonys and is incredibly useful if you need to quickly be aware of your surroundings or have a quick conversation with someone.
Sonos’ claim battery life of 30 hours (with ANC on) sounds entirely reasonable. In my time with it, I found that I needed to charge it once every few days. It also has a quick-charge function that gives you about three hours of power from just three minutes of charging.
TV Audio Swap only works with the Sonos Arc for now. Photo: Sonos
The Ace’s headline feature is TV Audio Swap, which lets you transfer audio that’s coming out of your Sonos soundbar to your Sonos Ace. Think of it as a private listening mode, and you can activate this feature simply by pressing and holding down on the Content Key. This mode supports spatial audio and head-tracking too, so you don’t lose out much, if any at all, in terms of an immersive listening experience.
I can see features like TV Audio Swap appealing most to homeowners who want to come home after a long day at work and enjoy some gaming, music or movies on the big screen with all the sound that goes with it, volume included, without having to think about accidentally waking the kids and neighbours. However, one thing to note is that TV Audio Swap takes place over Wi-Fi, which saps more energy and in turn means that the Ace’s battery life will suffer when using this feature. Additionally, even though audio is transferred using Wi-Fi, Sonos is still compressing audio data to conserve battery.
Some Sonos users have lamented that apart from TV Audio Swap, the Ace doesn’t really have any other feature that lets it work with your existing Sonos speaker setup. You can’t group it with other Sonos speakers and you certainly cannot hand off audio from other Sonos speakers to the Ace. As it turns out, features like these require a lot more processing capability and battery capacity that the Ace just doesn’t have. In contrast, the Roam portable speaker has 10 times the computing capability of the Ace. Check out this Reddit AMA that goes into way more detail.
We also must point out that at this stage, TV Audio Swap also has some serious shortcomings, the most important of which is that Android phone owners don’t have access to this feature, yet. You get support for iOS out of the box, but for some odd reason, support for Android devices is merely marked as “coming soon”. What’s more, this feature only works with the Sonos Arc soundbar at the moment, though Sonos assures us that compatibility with their other soundbars like the Ray and both Beam Gen 1 and Beam Gen 2 are in the works. The last thing you should know is that you can only swap audio from your Arc soundbar to one pair of Ace headphones, making TV Audio Swap a solo experience for now.
Update on 15 August 2024: Sonos has added a software update that finally brings TV Audio Swap to Android users. On top of that, it also added compatibility with the Ray and both the Gen 1 and Gen 2 Beam soundbars. However, you can still only swap audio from one soundbar to one pair of Ace headphones, which makes this feature a solo experience still.
Conclusion
The Ace is a solid set of wireless headphones, but its integration into the overall Sonos ecosystem is half-baked.
Let’s get one thing straight, like many other Sonos’ products, the Ace isn’t cheap. It’s S$699, which sits somewhere between the RRPs of the AirPods Max (S$813.90) and Sony WH-1000XM5 (S$589). The AirPods Max is nearly four years old at this point and due for a refresh, while the WH-1000XM5 can easily be found for less if you bother to look around.
However, the Ace has quite a bit going for it. It’s comfortable, sounds pleasant, has good ANC and transparency mode, and is well-built and easy on the eyes. However, its most unique feature – TV Audio Swap – seems half-baked and a huge missed opportunity. Its inability to work with anything other than the Arc soundbar is disappointing too. Imagine if it could work with the Sonos Amp and a turntable? Sonos did promise improvements, but I can only judge it based on what it can do now, and based on that, it’s hard to shake off the feeling that Sonos rushed to bring these headphones to the market.
Despite all that, the Ace should mostly be viewed as a success, because even without the TV Swap Audio feature, it’s a great pair of headphones that nails all the fundamentals. The fact that it is the company’s first-ever headphone only makes it all the more impressive.
You can find the Sonos Ace on Amazon, Lazada, and Shopee.
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