Sonos Ace First Impressions - I'm Impressed...? 🤔
After years of rumours, the Sonos Ace wireless headphones are finally here. I have been covering Sonos headphones since 2019. I had the opportunity to test it, but I was unable to put it through my usual battery of tests because it was in a controlled setting. However, I was able to gain a decent understanding of its capabilities with regard to sound quality, active noise canceling, and its very unique set of features that set it different from other headphones I've tested.
Sonos Ace Designs and Features
These headphones are sexy. They’re designed to be low profile and lightweight, and comfortable to wear for hours. The clamp felt firm, but not to the point of being uncomfortable. The cushions made of vegan leather are soft and plush, and they have a removable protective mesh that is magnetically attached.
The USB-C port and power/bluetooth pairing buttons can be found on the left earcup. The right earcup contains two buttons: the noise cancelling button, which can be toggled in and out of transparency, and the content button, which can be pressed in either way to adjust the volume and access your music settings.
Fast charging is supported via the USB-C port. You can get 3 hours of juice with a 3 minute charge. Audio output is additionally supported via this port. Either use the provided type-C to 3.5mm converter, or connect it straight to your source via USB-C. Some of you might notice that the headband only folds flat and doesn’t fold into a smaller package, but overall, it’s a very sleek design that feels great in my hands and on my head.
The Sonos Ace's specs include an active noise canceling feature and a battery life of up to 30 hours. It has multipoint pairing, which enables connections at the same time to up to two devices. Although it lacks hi-res certification, but the device is Snapdragon Sound certified, enabling streaming over aptX Adaptive. This allows for either high-compression, low-latency audio or a higher-quality stream same as aptX HD, depending on the content. However this feature is only available to Android users, as iPhones only support AAC. To access the upgraded aptX Adaptive stream, a smartphone powered by Snapdragon 8 is needed.
Sound Quality
In terms of sound quality, when playing selected music from a demo iPad, the most notable aspect of its sound is its smoothness and clean separation. The headphones offer an open and airy soundstage, with considerable detail and excellent dynamic range. However, they appear to lack a bit of bass depth, both in the mid and sub-bass frequencies, and the upper mids sound slightly darker. However, since I wasn’t using my usual test tracks, I'll need to confirm these observations again when I can.
Active Noise Cancelling
The Sonos Ace did a great job of canceling out background noise when I was in a crowded area. Even without the music I could already feel silence. While the noise canceling was impressive, I found myself even more impressed by its transparency mode. The sound was clear, with minimal background hissing, allowing for easy conversation with people nearby. My initial impression is that it's comparable to the transparency mode of the Sony WH-1000XM5, which is known for its best transparency. However, I'll need to confirm this when I receive a unit for review.
The Sony WH-1000XM5, known for its best transparency.
What’s Special About The Ace?
The Ace stands out from the others because it is the only one I have tested that features a built-in WiFi module. This module allows the Ace to beam audio to headphones through a Sonos soundbar by simply pressing the Content button for a few seconds. When you and your family are watching a movie together and they go to bed, but you still want to watch something else, I can definitely see this being really helpful. Instead of using the Sonos soundbar, you can keep listening to the audio on the Ace.
Sonos Ace has built-in WiFi module.
Sonos Spatial Audio
Moreover, you will be able to experience 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos spatial audio along with head tracking, which you can turn on through the Sonos app. Sonos spatial audio stands apart from the others since it is designed to be more realistic. It can adjust the spatial audio so that it sounds more in line with the real acoustics of your room by using TrueCinema, which is comparable to Trueplay tuning.
For example, in a small den, the Ace's spatial audio will mimic speakers playing in that space, offering a more authentic listening experience compared to a larger venue like a concert hall. When testing this feature in a controlled setting, the sounds of the movie Gravity did feel like it’s coming from outside the headphones.
Additionally, head tracking gives me the impression that I'm in the middle of a static home theater setup. That is the ideal sound of immersive spatial audio. However, to actually access spatial audio or tune it with TrueCinema, it seems you'll first need to own a Sonos soundbar. It won't function with any other audio source.
In fact, everything seemed a little underwhelming. Since Sonos is known for its interconnectivity, I expect a product that will allow me to access the entire Sonos ecosystem at home. This means audio can be shared between the Ace and Sonos Era 100, or even multiple Sonos speakers.
Final Thought
Imagine this scenario, where I’m listening to a podcast and I just got home, it autoconnects to WiFi and I can simply transfer the audio to my speaker with a tap of a button. This could have been a game-changer for the Ace and Sonos ecosystem, but Sonos had to balance this with maintaining a 30-hour battery life.
While we may not have everything we desire, it's alright. This hand off feature with Sonos soundbars is still pretty cool and the Ace is looking like a beautiful, unique and capable premium product.
If you’d like to check the latest prices of Sonos headphones and speakers, click on the Amazon links below.
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Sonos Ace: https://amzn.to/3xhgg9t
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