Sonos has long built a reputation for high-quality networked speakers, all built around its custom music playback ecosystem controlled through its mobile app. At first, Sonos was limited to dedicated music-playback systems, but more recently, the company’s product line has expanded to include amps, soundbars, and portable speakers.
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There seemed only one major audio frontier was left for Sonos to conquer, and that was headphones. Sure enough, in May 2024, the $449 Sonos Ace headphones were unveiled. A couple weeks later, we got our hands on them for our official Sonos Ace review, giving the cans a nine out of 10 rating and a SlashGear Editor’s Choice recommendation badge.
However, for a lot of people, $449 is a bit steep for a pair of headphones, even high-quality ones like the Ace. There are a lot of different headphones at just as many different price points, many of which offer surprisingly good sound at prices a lot lower than $449. So if the release of the Sonos Ace got you interested in buying a new pair of over-ear headphones but don’t want to break the bank, let’s go over some less expensive alternatives with similar, but not the same, feature sets.
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