Sonos Ace, the company’s first headphones, are here, and it’s fair to say they’ve been a long time coming. For roughly the past three years, the company best known for its multi-room speakers and TV soundbars has been actively working on its first wearable. That, though, comes after an even longer period of Sonos fans asking for active noise-cancelling headphones.
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The good thing about a frequently-demanded product is that you know you have an eager audience. The downside is that they’ve had plenty of time to imagine what your product should do, and that means convincing them what it eventually does do is worth the price. At $449, and given Sonos users’ reputation for demanding both ease-of-use and tech-forward features, the Ace headphones face a huge challenge.
The basics are certainly there. 30 hours of battery life, with a three minute charge via USB-C good for around three hours of playback. Active noise-cancellation and head-tracking spatial audio support. Yet it’s what Ace brings to the Sonos table specifically — their ability to quickly transfer audio from a Sonos TV soundbar for private listening — that’ll decide whether these are the new headphones for you.
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