Speaker 1: The Sonos Ace headphones are officially here and they're easily one of the best new headphones to hit the market, although they certainly aren't cheap. I've had a chance to test them out of the real world. So let's dive right into the review and dig into how they stack up to other premium wireless headphones in their lofty price class, including models from Bose, Sony, and Apple. Okay, so like I said before, a lot of people expected Sonos first headphones to be able to stream Lossless audio over wifi in your home and then use Bluetooth outside your Sonos home network. However, Sonos reps told me that listening to [00:00:30] music over wifi would greatly reduce the headphones battery life and the company opted to leave that feature off. So even though they're equipped with a wifi chip, they're not really wifi headphones and are first and foremost noise canceling Bluetooth headphones. Speaker 1: Unlike Sonos RO and move speakers which stream music over wifi on your Sonos Multiroom system and double as Bluetooth speakers off your home network, these headphones only use wifi to tap into your Sonos soundbar to create a personal home theater experience, $449 is [00:01:00] certainly a lot to spend on a pair of headphones and with tax, of course, the price is well over $450. You therefore expect the ace to have a premium design that's on par with other headphones in this price class such as the Sony WH 1000 X mark five Bose Quiet Comfort Ultra Headphones and Apple AirPods Max, which lists for 5 49 but are currently on sale for 4 49. And yes, like Sonos other products, they clearly do have a swanky design weighing in at 11 ounces or 312 [00:01:30] grams. They're not as light as the 250 gram Sony or the 253 gram bows, but they're considerably lighter than the 385 gram AirPods Max and quite comfortable to wear. Speaker 1: They have cushy memory foam ear pads covered in high-end full leather, and their chrome metal yolk allows the headphones to swivel in multiple directions. The hinge is hidden and the air cups adhere magnetically like they do on the AirPods max and they're replaceable, which is good, and it's easy to tell the right ear cup from the left as the right is [00:02:00] this green color on the inside and the left is white. I also appreciated that there was a relatively small gap between the headband and my head. The headphones hug your head nicely with just the right amount of clamping for the ear pads to create a good acoustic seal. Additionally, they come with a nice felt carrying case and their controls are well implemented. They have a rocker switch for volume that also doubles as a universal control button. You press it to pause your music, for example, and double press it to Advanced Tracks forward. Speaker 1: Underneath that button, [00:02:30] there is another button that allows you to toggle between noise canceling and a transparency mode that lets sound into the headphones and the power button is on the left ear cup. I'll ask like other over here headphones. These will steam up your ears a bit when you're using them in the warmer environments. I can't say I loved wearing them in the streets of New York City in 85 degree heat. I usually switch to earbuds when the temp goes over 75 degrees. As far as features go, the ACE are pretty loaded. They do feature top-notch noise canceling along with a natural [00:03:00] sounding transparency mode. That's pretty much on par with the AirPods Max's transparency mode. We did capture a little bit of footage of me testing 'em out on the streets of New York, so let's go check that out. So I've been testing the headphones here in the streets of New York for their noise canceling. Speaker 1: I put them up against the Sony and the bows. The AirPods Max are also really good, but I've been testing against the Sony and the bows. It's a lot of traffic noise and they don't completely tamp down all the noise. They don't reduce it to nothing, but they really take down a lot and [00:03:30] they're all really close. And the Sonys were the best for the while the then came along, they were arguing maybe slightly better, and these Sonos are right there with them in terms of getting the noise down. I wore these on the subway, wore 'em in the streets, so I've been trying to compare them and they're very close. They're equipped with Bluetooth 5.4 and Sport A C and Qualcomm's app decks, adaptive Audio codec along with Aptex Lossless. If you have a capable device like certain Android [00:04:00] smartphones, if you want to go the wired route, you can simply connect your USBC smartphone with the included USBC cable to get a digital lossless connection. Speaker 1: And you can also connect to a headphone port using that 3.5 ER cable. You can also listen to lost music on a device like a computer or music player. The ACE has wear detection sensors that automatically pause your music when you take the headphones off your head and resume playback when you put them back on. And there's an equalizer in the Sonos app that allows you to tweak the sound profile, not to [00:04:30] be outdone by the AirPods max. The ACE has a spatial audio feature that Sonos says, delivers a hyper-realistic three-dimensional sound, including an industry leading Dolby Atmos experience and dynamic head tracking from supported services and devices. You can turn it on or off in the Sonos app, and it did work with both my iPhone 15 and Google Pixel seven Pro. One of the key selling points for Sonos users will be the TV audio swap feature at launch. Speaker 1: Sonos says it will work only with its high-end arc [00:05:00] soundbar, but it's eventually coming to all its Beam and Ray Soundbars. It's really designed for folks who want to watch something on their TV at night and don't want to disturb others in their household who might be asleep. Instead of using your soundbar for sound, you hit a button in the app or hold down the noise canceling toggle button on the headphone itself and the sound is switched from the soundbar to the headphones with the soundbar decoding the Dolby Atmos stream. Sonos gave me a demo of the feature at the launch event, so I heard it in action. The result is similar to watching [00:05:30] a movie using Apples spatial audio feature. The dialogue fixed to the middle of the screen in front of you even when you move your head. However, I initially couldn't get the feature to work when I tried using my ACE review sample with my ARC soundbar at home. Speaker 1: Sonos has had a number of issues with the rollout of its revamp Sonos app, so I wasn't totally surprised that I had some problems, but I did have to contact Sonos customer support to troubleshoot the TV auto switching to get it to work. Hopefully you won't have the same experience. Sonos [00:06:00] does say the headphones home theater experience will get even better with time. Its new true Cinema technology is coming later this year, and it's supposed to precisely map your space, then render a complete surround sound system for a listening experience that's so realistic. You'll forget you're wearing headphones. The ACE have eight beam forming microphones for noise control and voice targeting, and they do have a mesh cover on them that is for wind noise reduction. And I made several test calls with [00:06:30] the headphones and they did a very good job reducing background noise in the noisy streets of New York City when I was using the Sony XM fives, which offer best in class voice calling performance callers said my voice sounded slightly more natural and less digitized, but the Sonos was pretty close. Here's a sample call I recorded. Just note, the call is recorded over the internet, so there's a bit of loss infidelity. All right, I'm out on the streets here in New York City in my usual test calling spot. I'm on the phone with Speaker 2: Fellow editor Josh [00:07:00] Goldman. Josh pretty noisy here. There's a little bit of wind. I got a lot of traffic in the background here. I keep talking a little so you get a sense of how the noise reduction is, but it's fairly noisy here. How do I sound overall? Speaker 3: Overall, you sound great. The noise reduction is doing its job, it's pin drop quiet right now when you're not talking, so that's a good sign. And I in general, your voice quality sounds good too. Not quite as natural sounding [00:07:30] as the Sonys, but just a slight little digital tinge to it. But otherwise you sound really good. Speaker 2: Alright, thanks a lot Josh. Speaker 1: As for battery life, Sono says the ACE are rated for up to 30 hours of use on a single charge at moderate volume levels with noise canceling on that solid. The Sony XM fives, for example, are also rated for 30 hours while the AirPods max are rated for up to 20 hours. A quick charge feature gets you three hours of playback time from a three minute charge, [00:08:00] and the headphones require about two hours to fully charge. Okay, let's move on to sound quality, which is what I'm sure a lot of you want to hear about. Sonos says the headphones have custom designed 40 millimeter dynamic drivers, and like I said, I was impressed with the ACEs sound quality. They're very clean sounding with nice detail and sparkle and the treble along with punchy, powerful base that doesn't get boomy. And they also have a wide sound stage. Speaker 1: These aren't quite up to level of even higher end headphones like phone calls, [00:08:30] bathie headphones, but they are pretty articulate and accurate. There's good separation between instruments and you can hear little details and tracks you wouldn't necessarily hear with lesser headphones because Sonys are a little warmer and accentuate the bass slightly. I personally prefer the ACE because I like more revealing headphones. I thought they were very close to the Bose QC Ultras and a very small step ahead of the AirPods Max. But everybody has different audio taste as you'll see from this little listening test I did with some colleagues here at work. Speaker 4: [00:09:00] I am picking Apple, I'm sorry, second is definitely the number four third. I'm going to have to give it to third even though I don't like how they feel. Very plasticy. And then the first option is last, Speaker 5: [00:09:30] Probably going to go 3 1, 4 2. Speaker 6: I would love to hear how much you think that costs those Sonos. Speaker 7: Sonos? Yeah, I would say it's giving 189. Speaker 6: So they are actually how much car? Speaker 8: Oh, 49. Speaker 7: Oh my God. Speaker 9: I am impressed with these. I really, really am. How much do Speaker 6: You think they Speaker 9: Cost? [00:10:00] But these look premium as hell. So I will say, I'm just going to say 4 99. Speaker 6: It's a little bit cheaper actually. Four 50, right? 4 49, Speaker 9: Yeah. Okay. I was going to say four 50 or 4 49, but I was again, let's just round up to the nearest a hundred. Speaker 1: Okay, so I can't say that was the most scientific test, so take it with a grain of salt, but I just wanted to give you an idea of how people reacted to putting on some of these competing premium models and listening to a track of their own choosing. [00:10:30] Now, after the test, some of the folks asked me, which I thought was the best of the four models, and I'd say the Sonos may have a slight edge over the other three, particularly if you're a Sonos user. The bows are a very close second while the Sonian AirPods Max are just a touch behind the Sony XM five is around two years old and maybe due for an upgrade fairly soon. And there's chatter that an AirPods Max two may be coming later this year. So that's partially why I'd go with the Sonos or Bose [00:11:00] at this moment. Speaker 1: And for Android users anyway, the AirPods Max just aren't a good option. Sorry, I can't compare even more models. I know some of you out there might mention the Sennheiser momentum for wireless, for example. Yes, it costs less and also sounds very good. So do several other headphones, but I can only drone on so long. And I'll finish up by giving you a quick rundown of the key pros and cons of the ACE headphones on the plus side. They're really well designed. They also sound excellent, have top-notch noise canceling [00:11:30] and very good voice calling performance. I also appreciated that they have USBC audio and spatial audio with head tracking. And for Sonos users, the TV audio swap feature is an appealing option. That may just be the thing that makes you willing to drop $450 on them. On the downside, I was disappointed that they aren't capable of really being a wifi headphone, allowing you to use them as a speaker, your sono system at home. Secondly, the TV audio switching feature only works with the ARC soundbar at launch and it was a little [00:12:00] wonky for me. And lastly, the headphones are obviously quite expensive. As always, let me know what you think in the comments section. If you found this video informative at all, hit the like button and subscribe to this channel if you haven't already. I'm David Conne for cnet.com. Thanks for watching.
