Sonos is desperate for some sort of success, with demand for their speakers in decline, profits falling, and with consumers panning their latest app, the Company has finally after much hype rushed out a pair of Ace branded headphones, and it’s got mixed reviews.
While the look is kind of premium, several reviewers are describing their latest product offering as expensive, flawed but delivering good sound.
There is also several omissions including Wi Fi and then there’s that dodgy Sonos app.
Here’s what some audio and tech publications had to say.
ZDNET
The Sonos Ace are both the audio market’s worst-kept secret and the most anticipated pair of headphones since Apple debuted the AirPods Max in 2020. For years now, audio fanatics and casual listeners have been eager for a fresh, new addition to the premium headphones space, and the Sonos Ace are positioned to compete directly with Sony, Apple, and Bose, each notorious for their dedicated user bases.
While the Sonos Ace mostly deliver a rich and premium listening experience, some consumers may not be able to overlook its flaws, such as the inferior active noise cancellation (ANC) when compared to other headphones. Otherwise, the headphones deliver on the small details and fiercely compete with its peers in the comfort, sound, and design departments.
At $699 the Sonos Ace are slightly overpriced. To be fair, I shared the same sentiment about Sony, Apple, and Bose’s premium headphones. Whenever you can find any of these cans for a discounted price, that’s when you should buy them. Given the Ace’s technical blemishes and their initial incompatibility with every Sonos soundbar model, you should give the headphones some time to be refined before putting down any money.
EFTM
Locally Trevor Long of EFTM also said “I can’t justify the $699 (price tag) for the average user”.
Engadget
After a years-long wait, Sonos delivered an impressive headphone debut with the Ace. There’s room for improvement in some areas and it’s disappointing that updates to the Android app, support for all of the company’s soundbars and a key home theatre feature are arriving at a date that’s yet to be determined. There’s no doubt that Sonos built a great-looking set of headphones that sound excellent, but a bit more polish could’ve gone a long way.
CNet
A lot of people expected Sonos’ first headphones to be able to stream lossless audio over Wi-Fi in your home and then use Bluetooth outside your Sonos home network. However, Sono’s reps told me that listening to music over Wi-Fi would greatly reduce the headphone’s battery life and the company opted to leave that feature off. So even though they’re equipped with a Wi-Fi chip, they’re not really Wi-Fi headphones and are first and foremost noise-cancelling Bluetooth headphones.
Headphones like the Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless and Sennheiser Accentum Plus cost less and also sound very good.
So do several other headphones, including the Beats Studio Pro, which sometimes get discounted. They’re better values, especially when they go on sale, but overall, the Ace deliver a more premium listening experience, as well as better noise-cancelling and voice-calling performance.
On the downside, I was disappointed that the Ace aren’t capable of really being a Wi-Fi headphone, allowing you to use them as a speaker on your Sonos system at home.
It’s also not ideal that the TV audio switching feature only works with the Arc sound bar at launch.
Yahoo Finance
After a years-long wait, Sonos delivered an impressive headphone debut with the Ace. There’s room for improvement in some areas and it’s disappointing that updates to the Android app, support for all of the company’s soundbars and a key home theatre feature are arriving at a date that’s yet to be determined. There’s no doubt that Sonos built a great-looking set of headphones that sound excellent, but a bit more polish could’ve gone a long way.
What Hi Fi Sound & Vision
Sonos might have mastered soundbars and multi-room systems, but it’s a disappointing debut in the premium wireless headphones category. The competition at this level is head and shoulders above the Ace when it comes to sound quality.
They also singled out.
Lack of clarity and expression, Stunted dynamics, and rhythmic drive., Slightly buggy during testing, Average call quality.
The Verge
This publication raised a key issue that ChannelNews is becoming concerned about, the forced and compulsory acceptance of terms and conditions that are only presented to consumers after you have purchased a product, and that often means signing away your rights to data protection and the personal information which in Sonos’s case means they know what you are listening to.
Agree to continue: Sonos Ace headphones.
Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It’s impossible for us to read and analyse every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate.
By opening the packaging for the Sonos Ace — it says so right on the pull tabs — you’re agreeing to:
Sonos’ terms of use, license, and warranty agreement
Sonos’ privacy statement policy
The final tally is two mandatory agreements.
The Verge also claim that ‘For a first effort, the company got more right than wrong and nailed the fundamentals. The Ace are wonderfully comfortable, they sound good, and they hold their own in regard to ANC.
But the undeniable truth is that these headphones feel rushed.
Sonos clearly had a release timeframe in mind that it was unwilling to budge on. With consumer demand for soundbars and speakers continuing to shrink, this is a company in need of diversifying its business — and doing it fast.
But the Ace headphones desperately could’ve used some extra months of polish before this launch. As is, Android phone owners can’t enjoy their most unique feature, and everyone will need Sonos’ priciest soundbar to experience TV Audio Swap until an unspecified time in the future.
