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Sonos’ website had a heads-up: “Our most requested product is coming soon”…If you want a comfortable, great-sounding wireless streaming headphone, with best-in-class noise canceling and a cool design, under $500, meet the Sonos Ace, available now on SKY by Gramophone @ $449 per pair in either soft white or black.

Ace supports both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and offers some cool extra features when used with Sonos soundbars. Want to watch a movie at night, with great surround sound, while your spouse is sleeping next to you? Now you can! Here are some impressive things to know:

Ace offers up to 30 hours of listening on a three-hour charge. Even better, you can add another 3 hours of listening time with a quick 3-minute charge – WOW. The headband and earcups are made of soft, comfortable vegan leather. Ace feels lightweight, which is perfect for a long flight, yet they also feel sturdy, especially when you pivot them. The earpads rotate so that they lay flat in the slim case. If you travel, Ace packs easily.

The magnetic ear cushions are detachable as well, a great feature as earpads are sometimes the first thing to wear out. The nicely padded headband and ear cushions mean that for most folks, these can stay on your head for a long time. There’s also good depth between the earpad and the driver surface, so they don’t bump your ears. 

The right earpad is even a different color than the left, making it easy to put them on correctly. Ace’s stainless steel headband moves back and forth very smoothly. Besides looking cool, Ace strikes a good balance between being lightweight and feeling secure.

Ace has smart-sensing on-ear detection, so it pauses the music when you take them off; the music resumes when you put them on! The same sensor pauses the music if your phone rings. This feature is defeatable in the app.

A critical issue with any headphones: what do they sound like? Ace has a custom 40 mm driver (1.5”) in each ear cup, and the sound is very impressive for this price range. Ace has a slight bass boost and a slight treble peak around 5-7k. They are not quite as linear as a $3,000 mixing ‘phone, but they are clear, crisp, and not muddy or bloated in the bass. Adele’s "Rolling in the Deep" really showed off her wide, soaring vocal range, and the song sounded great listening with Ace.  

We tried Fleetwood Mac’s Mystery to Me, a hidden nugget in their catalog, and the balance between lows, mids, and highs came through nicely. Rock, classical, and blues all sounded good.  Ace offers lossless Bluetooth audio via AptX Lossless with Android devices, or via an included USB-C cable.

Active Noise Canceling (ANC) is on-board, for squashing background noise — very helpful when in a noisy environment. Ace is terrific compared to others in the category and price range, with eight carefully positioned microphones. With ANC you BARELY hear outside noise. But you also have Aware mode, so when you’re out walking and you want to hear cars and people blended with your music, you can. Aware mode offers the best of both worlds.

Phone calls are really clear. The aforementioned eight microphones use beam-forming technology to identify your voice and suppress background noise on phone calls or video calls, very effectively.

You get real magic with the popular Sonos soundbars. With Spatial Audio enabled in the Sonos app, if the soundtrack has surround sound or Atmos Audio, the Sonos soundbar can send a full surround mix to Ace – which sounds amazing.  With stereo sound, you get a virtual spatial audio mix. 

Sonos calls it “TV Audio Swap”. We watched AVATAR, and what we heard was stunning, a realistic portrayal of surround sound, perfect for watching movies on a flight, or at a busy, noisy coffee shop. Currently, this works with iOS devices only, but it will soon work with Android phones too. It works now in June 2024 with Sonos Arc and Arc SL, and Sonos promises it will soon migrate to their soundbars Sonos Ray, Beam Gen 1, and Beam Gen 2. 

Sonos Dynamic Head Tracking can adjust the direction of the spatial audio, so the sound follows your head movement! You can affect the location of the audio’s center point by disabling Dynamic Head Tracking; facing where you want the center point to be; then e-enabling Dynamic Head Tracking. You can also disable this feature entirely in the app if you don’t want it. 

OK, how about connections? You get a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a USB-C cable for streaming lossless audio. That’s also used for charging from your laptop, or any wall-wart charger with a USB-C connection.

Here is a note on ease of use. Ace uses Bluetooth to pair with devices, so pairing is quick and easy. It does not require the Sonos app to set up and use. However, some of its best features are only adjustable with the app.

Ace’s future is bright! Sonos’ website notes future software updates are coming, for greater compatibility with Android devices, and enabling the cool soundbar features to work with more of their soundbars. Today’s EQ offerings in the app are bass, treble, and loudness. We hope for a more sophisticated EQ scheme with presets in future software updates.  

Summing up, we’re really impressed with Sonos Ace. This wireless headphone has first-rate noise canceling, and a really good design, with an attractive appearance, plus solid build quality. It is light and comfy, has easy-to-use buttons & controls, a 30-hour battery life, and a 3-minute recharge that brings you 3 extra hours of play, plus cool soundbar integration.  

For more about Ace, and all of our great brands, visit gramophone.com, and visit SKY by Gramophone to pick up your own pair. They are in stock now, and you’ll get fast and free shipping straight to your door.