As soon as If you want to listen to the same music in multiple rooms, you understand why so many people love Sonos. When it comes to set-it-and-forget-it multiroom audio, the company makes the hardware and software experience easier than anyone else. From speakers to sound bars (and even networked turntables and amplifiers), Sonos has taken over the homes of everyone who doesn’t want to spend tons of cash on a “real” custom-installed system with cables running through the walls. . In some ways, this makes a somewhat expensive Sonos system seem affordable.
The same can be said for its first pair of headphones, the $450 Sonos Ace. They may hit the price ceiling set by Apple’s AirPods Max, but they also work seamlessly within the Sonos ecosystem, albeit over Bluetooth rather than Wi-Fi.
Sonos has dabbled in portable speakers like the Roam and Sonos Move 2 to extend its home sound to patios and beach blankets, but the Ace headphones mark a true mobile game-changer for the company, and they’re largely great. They may not perfectly meet the expectations of audio nerds who have been begging for Wi-Fi-based Sonos headphones for a decade, but the Ace are a fantastic pair of Bluetooth headphones that go toe-to-toe with the best of Bose, Sony. and Apple. If you’re shopping for premium wireless earbuds, these should be on your short list.
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The Ace feels incredibly well made. Open up the included hard case, something the Airpods Max notably and very strangely lack, and you’ll see a stylish pair of ears with shiny metal bands and supple leather around the headband. They are round headphones with a traditional shape that do not attract anyone’s attention: they look like a batch like the Sony WH-1000XM5.
The simple design is timeless, elegant and professional, so you never look out of place. It’s a design language borrowed from the “I didn’t see you there” style of its speakers, and welcome in the world of flashy modern cans. Like the speakers, they come in matte white or black.
Photography: Parker Hall
It has two shades of gray inside the earbuds to tell you which is right and left (the darker is the left and the lighter is the right, making them ideal for people who are color blind or have low vision), and they have three Basic buttons on the outside, nestled among a variety of mesh-covered microphones. The replaceable earbuds use magnets to hold on and come with a built-in mesh cover that helps keep dirt out of the earbud drivers, and there’s also a slot for a USB-C cable on the bottom left.
The main thing you’ll use to control the headphones, aside from the app and your smartphone, is the volume slider on the right earcup, which lets you play and pause music with a single press; You can slide it up or down to control the volume. At the bottom of the left cup is the power button, and there’s a similarly sized button at the bottom right that adjusts the active noise cancellation between on and transparency mode (which channels sound from the outside world). Within the Sonos app, you can also set this toggle to turn off ANC and transparency entirely, but that’s not the default option.
Other settings you can change in the app include the basic bass and treble equalizer, and whether you want the headphones to pause when you take them off or answer calls when you put them on.
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The fit is surprisingly comfortable thanks to the Ace’s 11-ounce weight. and there is a great design option where the headband attaches to the headphones. It connects in the center of the cup, giving the earbuds a nice center-directed clamping force. This means less headband fatigue and greater comfort when wearing glasses, something I experience with the AirPods Max, which are heavier and have greater holding force on my head.
It’s hyperbole from headphone reviewers, but I actually forgot I was using the Ace on a few occasions. They are that comfortable and the included transparency and associated microphones are so good that they have an uncanny ability to trick your brain into feeling like you have nothing in your head. I didn’t encounter any of the strange boxy feeling I get from other headphones with transparency on. I had entire conversations with the headphones on, which I normally found too uncomfortable to do with other headphones. (I still think it’s rude not to take off your headphones when chatting.)
As for noise reduction, I was very surprised how the Ace immediately offers some of the best noise cancellation on the market with the push of a button. Activating ANC mode is like changing the world volume from 9 to 1 on some global volume dial. HVAC system noises almost disappear, cars on the roads dwindle to nothing, and even my mechanical keyboard sounds like the light tap of a pen on a keyboard. Noise reduction is easily on par with the top brass, and Bose still narrowly beats the competition in high frequencies.
