Can Sonos beat Apple AirPods Max with new Bluetooth magic?

Sonos has launched its first headphones, and given the brand’s history of high-quality and high-priced devices aimed squarely at the overlap between top-end consumers and mid-level audio enthusiasts, it’s no surprise to find that the $700 Sonos Ace is a brilliant and convenient set of cans.

With big 40mm drivers powering warm but clearly defined audio with plenty of bass, a series of microphones enabling excellent noise cancellation, and internal processing allowing for use with spatial Dolby Atmos mixes and a few other tricks, these headphones will be a tempting upgrade from high-end Sonys, while also presenting an alternative to Apple’s super-premium AirPods Max.

However, any portable, wireless set of headphones is an exercise in compromise, with decisions to be made that balance weight, performance, battery life and convenience. Sonos’ choices may put it at odds with its biggest fans, even as the Ace opens the door to new ones. The Ace lasts 30 hours on a charge, for example, which would surely not be the case if it could stream over both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth like Sonos’ portable speakers.

Sonos was once an upstart, fighting to sell wireless audio to rusted-on hi-fi fans who were convinced cables were the only way. These days, multi-room Wi-Fi speaker set-ups are common even among audiophiles, but the Ace is a sideways step into a world of different benefits and compromises. Ditching Wi-Fi to go full Bluetooth makes sense for headphones, of course, but I can still see some Sonos fans being miffed that these won’t fully integrate into their systems for exclusively in-home use.

The Sonos Ace uses an unusual mechanical slider for volume and playback control.

Great looks, stunning sound

Physically, the Ace is a lovely and minimalist set of headphones in faux-leather and steel. The sliding rail and hinge-free design makes for a very comfortable wear, and I didn’t find the memory foam build too warm or the flexible headband too tight. At 312 grams, it’s not necessarily the lightest set of premium Bluetooth headphones, but it’s noticeably lighter than many, including the AirPods Max, and comes in a nice hard travel case.

Sonos has avoided touch-based controls and gone with mechanical buttons instead, which in theory means you don’t have to worry about remembering which way to swipe to do what. But the tactile set-up still takes some getting used to. The left cup has a power button that you use only for turning on or activating Bluetooth pairing. The right has a button that cycles between noise-cancelling modes, as well as a pill-shaped slider you move up and down for volume, press to pause or double press to skip.

USB-C and 3.5mm cables are included and can be used for wired audio if needed.

Set-up is simple — the headphones are ready to go as soon as you pair them with your phone. The default sound is roomy and well-defined, with a pleasant amount of bass, but you can use the EQ in the Sonos app to tweak it to your liking. Compared to my Sony WH-1000XM5s, the Ace sounds wider and punchier, and I felt I could pick out individual instruments easier. I was also immediately impressed by the Ace’s performance in podcasts and calls, where some high-end headphones can become flat. Powerful noise cancellation lets you appreciate music on public transport or in busy places without having to jack up the volume, and a press of the button activates a transparency mode so you can hear people talking or cars approaching.

Of course, the music will sound only as good as its source, and in the case of Bluetooth headphones, that means your phone, your environment, the apps you use and your internet connection all factor in. Sonos hasn’t really done anything unique to fix things here; a poor connection from an old phone or congestion on a peak-hour train will still affect you.

And even the best headphones won’t make the murky world of high-res lossless music codecs any clearer. Sonos says the Ace supports Apple’s lossless formats, and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Sound AptX Lossless. But you’re not going to benefit from them unless you’re using a wired connection or one of the extremely few supported Android devices, respectively. To my ears, the difference is so minimal that it’s not worth the effort.

The same can’t be said for spatial audio, however, which can make a dramatic difference to the way music sounds. I often find spatial mixes busy and overwhelming, especially on more compact speakers and buds like the AirPods Pro. But while a lot still depends on how the specific track has been set up, the Ace does an excellent job placing each sound and instrument in a specific spot within a wide field, whether that’s dance beats that swoop in from a distance or guitars that growl from the lower left while drums and keys take centre stage. Tracks mixed in Dolby Atmos or Sony 360 Reality are supported.

Works seamlessly with exactly one other Sonos speaker

The Ace packs in quite a few special features, some of which will be familiar to users of premium headphones (like the sensor that pauses music if you take it off), and some that are more unique.

A motion sensor (if turned on in the settings) tracks your head’s movement, so for example, if you look to the left while listening to a spatial mix, the sound from the front will transition to your right ear. If you hold your head there for a few seconds, it becomes the new default spot. It works well, even if it only really makes sense for close, stationary listening or movie watching.

If you have a Sonos Arc soundbar, you can connect it to the Ace for easy personal TV sound.

And speaking of which, perhaps the Ace’s greatest trick is that you can pair it with a Sonos Arc soundbar and pass the audio back and forth with the press and hold of a button on the cup. Connecting Bluetooth headphones to TVs generally makes for a less than ideal experience, but here you get great, low-latency sound from any app or device that would usually output from your soundbar, and Atmos is still supported. For solo late-night movie-watching, it’s great.

Unlike most Sonos products, the Ace doesn’t connect to Wi-Fi and integrate with your other devices in a whole-home audio set-up. It does show up in the Sonos app where you can set your preferences and EQ settings, but it’s more or less isolated from the other speakers. Even with the headphones connected to your phone via Bluetooth, you can’t play music on them via the Sonos app or easily move music from speakers to your cans. In more than a few cases, the app told me it couldn’t detect the headphones at all, despite them being connected and working normally.

Niggles with the app will hopefully be resolved by future updates, though, with Sonos saying it also plans to expand the Ace’s home theatre experience in future with support for the Beam and Ray soundbars, and a tool called TrueCinema that will make spatial audio streamed from the soundbar more realistic. Expansion to older devices like the Playbase or Sonos Amp seems unlikely.

Overall, Bluetooth headphones are a new direction for Sonos, and I’m not surprised there’s a small amount of friction with the rest of its ecosystem which until now was purely focused on connected speakers. But taken on its own merits, the Sonos Ace is an incredible set of headphones that stands up to the category leaders while also carrying many core tenets of the Sonos brand. It sounds great, looks great, costs a lot, pushes the boundaries for personal music and works best if you have other Sonos gear.

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