Sonos Ace headphones review: A symphony of sound and design

Sonos making its move into headphones was a hot topic for several years, so it came as no surprise when the multi-room audio company finally made its grand reveal of the Sonos Ace towards the end of May. 

They were a long time coming – five years if you were following the initial rumours – but with a reputation to uphold from the company’s speaker offering, do the Ace headphones hit the mark? I’ve been using the Sonos Ace headphones since they were announced – on planes, on trains, out and about and in the house – and here’s my full review.

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The Disconnekt Downlow

The Sonos Ace are a superb set of over-ear headphones. They offer a lovely comfortable design, excellent sound performance, great battery life and a decent set of features that make them a brilliant buy for anyone in the market for over-ears, not just Sonos fans. They are very expensive, they could offer more for an existing Sonos user other than just the TV Audio Swap feature and a couple of extra colour options would be welcomed. But if you’re looking for a pair of over-ear headphones that are well-designed, deliver superb sound and great noise cancellation, while also being easy to use and offering a few extra features too, the Sonos Ace headphones are absolutely fantastic.

Buy for £449 on Amazon

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The reasons you should choose the Sonos Ace headphones

There are a few things Sonos is known for doing well. The first is design, the second is sound performance and the third is ease of use. It’s fair to say then, that there are high expectations of the Sonos Ace headphones. The Sonos Era 100 and Era 300 are two of the best products in their field, and with a price tag as high as the Sonos Ace headphones are asking, they too need to be up there with the best in their field.

Luckily, just like Sonos speakers, design, sound performance and ease of use are three areas the Sonos Ace headphones excel in. The design is simple and sophisticated with clean lines and minimal fuss. You have to look very closely to know they are Sonos headphones, with a subtle colour-matched logo on the right ear cup being the only giveaway. 

The ear cups have a lovely slim profile with a “racetrack” shape that’s not too dissimilar from Apple’s AirPods Max, and there are stainless steel arms too so there’s definitely a correlating premium finish. The hinge is hidden within the ear cups on the Sonos Ace headphones though, and the Ace are much lighter, opting for plastic and leather over aluminium and mesh. 

What’s more important however, is the Ace headphones are very comfortable – more comfortable than the AirPods Max. I was a little concerned the Vegan leather would feel sticky when it was hot outside and I’d be peeling these off my face – in the same way a leather sofa sticks to your skin in the summer – but that wasn’t the case. Instead, the leather was soft and smooth and the headband nicely cradled my head, making the Ace headphones barely noticeable when on.

The controls are simple and effective too. A sliding button that Sonos calls a Content Key sits on the side of the right ear cup, alongside the button for switching between Noise Cancellation and Aware modes. Pushing it once will pause or play audio, twice will skip forward and three times will go back a track, but you can also slide it up and down for volume control. There’s also a TV Audio Swap feature that uses this Content Key, which I’ll talk about a little more in a second. 

When it comes to sound performance, the Sonos Ace headphones are superb. They support spatial audio and Dolby Atmos and there is head tracking on board too, which offers a convincing experience when listening to compatible tracks and films, keeping you in the centre of the song or action even if you move around.

Elsewhere, there’s a decent amount of bass, as Sonos fans will expect, while vocals are crystal clear, and the mid-range nice and detailed. I found the bass to be similar to AirPods Max, but I thought Sonos Ace offered slightly clearer vocals. I listened to everything from Space Ghost’s Coast to Coast and Ed Sheeran’s Shivers to Billie Eilish What Was I Made For, Paul Simon’s Diamonds On The Souls Of Her Shoes, and remastered Beach Boys Wouldn’t It Be Nice in Dolby Atmos. Everything sounded fabulous and incredibly detailed, from the plucking of the guitar strings at the beginning of Sheeran’s Shivers to Eilish’s deep breathing in What Was I Made For.

Noise cancellation is excellent too. In fact, it’s a very pleasant experience. There’s no suction so you don’t feel like you’re in a tube when you turn it on. It doesn’t block absolutely everything out on a plane – you’ll still hear the louder passengers but they will be muffled and the background noise gets completely drowned out. I compared the Sonos Ace with the AirPods Max on the same flight and you get a very similar experience, which is a compliment to the Ace as AirPods Max are superb at noise cancellation.

What features do the Sonos Ace headphones offer?

The Sonos Ace headphones don’t need the Sonos app for setup – you can pair them and use them as you would any other pair of Bluetooth headphones making them simple to operate. But, you get more features if you use the app so it is something I would recommend. 

There are various features on offer with the app, from adjusting the EQ settings should you want to reduce the bass, or boost the bass and treble at low volumes, to turning head tracking on and off – not everyone likes it.

The app also allows you to switch between the noise control modes – Noise Cancelling, Aware Mode and Off – and while you can of course use the button on the right ear cup for that, the app lets you decide which of those modes you want the button to offer. You might decide to switch between noise cancelling and completely off, for example, ignoring Aware mode. 

There are also various settings for Wear Detection in the app, allowing you to turn it on or off, as well as choose whether you want the Ace headphones to pause content when you take them off and resume when you put them back on, with another separate setting available for calls.

But it’s really the TV Audio Swap feature I mentioned that you’ll want the app for. The feature currently only works with the top-of-the-range Sonos Arc, but it will be coming to the Sonos Beam (Gen 2) and the Sonos Ray in a future software update. As the name suggests, you can setup your Sonos Ace headphones to transfer audio between your Sonos Arc soundbar and the Sonos Ace headphones. I had a couple of glitches with it initially, but it then worked seamlessly and while I think it’s a little niche, it is a great experience in practice, with very minimal lag in the switch itself.

You might want to watch a film when your partner or the kids have gone to bed, for example, transferring the audio to your Ace headphones mean you still get a great sound experience but without waking up the entire house. It’s very simple to set up – I’m talking a couple of taps – after which you can either press the Content Key to transfer the audio, or you can use the app. If you use the app, you get the option to turn spatial audio off.

What the Sonos Ace headphones could do better

Where the Sonos Ace could be better is their integration with the Sonos system. As someone with multiple Sonos speakers in my home, I’m a little disappointed the Ace headphones don’t have a feature like Sonos Roam’s Sound Swap. I was sure that’s what Sonos would offer when it announced headphones and while the TV Audio Swap feature does tie the headphones in with the Sonos system, it’s only if you have a soundbar rather than any of the other speakers. 

The Sonos Roam and Roam 2 allow you to press and hold the play/pause button to swap what is playing on the portable speaker to the closest Sonos speaker in your home when you come in. Sure, it’s perhaps a luxury offering, but it would at least give Sonos fans – and those without a soundbar – a reason to buy the Ace headphones other than the lovely design and decent sound performance. Sonos isn’t the only brand to offer those attributes in over-ears after all. Being able to hit the Content Key when you got home after a commute to transfer your podcast or the song you had been listening to over to your living room speaker for example, would have been a nice touch.

I’d also have loved to see Sonos push the boat out a little with the colour offering. The company is known for its monotone options, with the Roam, Move and the Sonos One at one point being the only speakers in the portfolio to venture away from just black and white. The Soft White variant of the Sonos Ace headphones tests the water a little with the inside of the ear cup coloured a lovely green, along with the inside of the case and the zip on the case. But I would love to have seen that green extend into an entire model of the Sonos Ace. 

Even Apple that only offers white in most of its AirPods models has different colour options for the AirPods Max, and the latest Sony ULT Wear headphones have green as an option alongside black and white so it’s clearly the colour of the season. We can always hope though. You never know what the company has up its sleeve.

Should you buy the Sonos Ace headphones

The Sonos Ace are a superb set of over-ear headphones. They offer a lovely comfortable design, excellent sound performance, and a decent set of features that make them a really great buy for anyone in the market for over-ears, not just Sonos fans.

They are expensive though – significantly more than Sony’s brilliant WH-1000MX5s that are some of the best in the market, and in the same price bracket as Apple’s AirPods Max that offer some great convenience features for Apple users and a premium design and sound experience almost worthy of the cash.

The Ace headphones could also offer more for an existing Sonos user. The TV Audio Swap feature is well executed but it’s reserved for those with a soundbar and I’d like to see more integration with the Sonos system as a bonus. Still, if you’re looking for a pair of over-ear headphones that are well-designed, deliver excellent sound quality and super noise cancellation with a few extra features to boot, the Sonos Ace are absolutely fantastic. 

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