Sonos, a brand known for its premium audio ecosystem, ventured into the headphone market for the first time with the Sonos Ace. This new offering comes with a hefty price tag of Rs 39,999, placing it in a competitive market against established players like the Bose QC Ultra and Sony WH1000-XM5. The Ace boasts a stunning design and has a unique feature: TV Audio Swap, designed to seamlessly integrate with Sonos soundbars. But does this, along with its other attributes, justify the premium? Let’s dive in and see if the Sonos Ace lives up to the hype and if it can carve its own space in the crowded premium headphone market.
Sonos Ace
Rs 39,999
What Is Good?
- Well-balanced sound
- Looks and feels premium
- Great fit while being lightweight
- Predictable physical button feedback
- Transparency mode works well
- Good battery life
What Is Bad?
- Pricey
- TV audio swap only works with limited devices
Design and Build Quality
While the Ace isn’t the lightest pair of premium headphones, it does have a slew of design elements that make you think “Oh, that’s really well-thought-out”! The slim profile, the clever chrome metal yoke that allows horizontal and vertical adjustments without a visible hinge, the magnetic ear cups, the choice of materials — it all just makes perfect sense.
| Design | Specs |
| Build Material | Plastic, metal and faux leather |
| Weight | 0.312 kg |
| Water Resistance | None |
| Colour Options | Black and white |
Consider me old-school, but I really dig the concept of having physical buttons. They add a sense of predictability with their tactile feedback, with the downside of the added heft of the button activation mechanism.
Sonos’ clever trick of embedding as many as 11 functions within just three buttons is well-executed. You get a slider to increase or decrease the volume, but it can also be pressed to pause/play tracks or change them. Its placement is sublime because whenever you reach for the cans, they fall easily within your reach. This also completely eliminates accidental touches. The other two buttons are for toggling between noise cancellation and transparency modes, and for turning the headphones on or off.
The plush padding on the headband and ear cups ensures a secure fit in ‘most’ scenarios. I say that, because they did come off while performing a bench press in the gym — the Dyson OnTrac are still the only pair of over-the-ear headphones I have used that don’t budge while doing so.
There are two colours to choose from — black and white — and I received the former. Black is a safer choice because the scratches don’t stand out and it’s relatively easier to keep clean.
Here’s the downside, though – the Ace doesn’t have an ingress protection rating of any form, and I think that’s a huge bummer for a pair of headphones this expensive.
Sound Quality
Crisp and loud — that’s how I’d define the Sonos Ace’s sound in a nutshell.
There’s a clear emphasis on highs and mids while ensuring the bass isn’t boomy or overpowering. Because of this, the headphones are suited to a variety of genres. You can enjoy the usual R&B, hip-hop tracks with springy basslines equally well as you’d enjoy rock or instrumental music. And, because of how wide the soundstage is, the vocals cut clearly through other frequencies.
| Attribute | Specs |
| Drivers | 40mm custom-tuned dynamic drivers |
| Microphones | Eight microphones for noise control and voice targeting. |
| Bluetooth Codec | AAC, SBC, AptX Lossless, ALAC |
| Noise control modes | Noise cancelling, transparency, off |
Along with the usual AAC and SBC codecs, the Ace also supports ALAC and AptX Lossless formats. There’s also support for Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 Reality Audio here.
If you really want to keep yourself entertained on a dull afternoon, you can try the Sonos ‘Intelligent Motion Processing’ with Dolby Head Tracking. This turns any track on any platform into three-dimensional audio which is synced to your head movements. While it is fun, it can be unnerving sometimes, because it essentially changes the output balance of the two ear cups. So, if you find yourself hearing sound coming out of only one ear, make sure you turn off the option within the Sonos app.
The noise cancellation is right up there with the Sonys and Boses of the world, but I don’t think it will knock your socks off. Yes, it can drown the humming of a jet engine on an emergency seat, but not to an extent that beats the rivals by a mile. The transparency mode, however, is the best I have used in a pair of headphones yet. It truly feels as if you’re not wearing anything over your ears.
While all this is great, you may want to know the reason the Ace has nearly a 10 grand premium over other rival headphones. That’s because of a feature called TV audio swap. In a nutshell, it lets you easily switch the audio output from your Sonos soundbar to your Sonos Ace headphones for a private listening experience. In theory, this is really cool, but it only supports Arc, Beam, and Ray speakers by Sonos, and requires a Wi-Fi connection to run.
The Sonos Era I received from the brand earlier wasn’t supported by the Ace, so I wasn’t able to try out the feature.
Keeping the TV audio swap feature aside, I think Sonos really thought the feature set through, because the codecs and compliances will please buyers from all ecosystems alike. There’s also Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity here, which means you get access to low-latency audio, along with access to features such as Auracast.
Battery Life and Charging
You can expect nearly 27 hours, or five days of battery life (with ANC/transparency mode turned on). For a full charge from zero, you’ll have to wait about two and a half hours, which isn’t too bad. If you’re in a pinch, you can just charge for 15 minutes to get about five hours of battery life. Charging happens over Type-C, and there’s no adapter in the box.
Verdict
Sonos hits the nail on the head with its first offering, at least in terms of features and design. 
It evokes the emotion of ‘love at first sight’, and then goes on to deliver quality sound. But, and a big one, the price will not make sense to all. The TV audio swap feature is a forced novelty for most buyers. I think the Ace would be the hottest product on Amazon if it had two variants – one with and another without the feature. If you’re not committed to investing heavily in Sonos’ soundbars, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra or Sony WH1000-XM5 are definitely going to be compelling deals. But, I’d still recommend at least trying the Ace out at a showroom near you because it’s an experience like no other.
