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Hi all, anyone else hear have some Sonos Ace headphones and can test this for me? I have two Sonos Ace headphones (wife and I) and they both do it. They’re both brand new. Sonos have told me they’re both faulty and to return them both but I’m thinking it’s more of a widespread QC issue. 

Put volume low or even off, and test with both ANC on and also in Aware mode and get some cutlery and drop the cutlery into the cutlery draw so it lands on other cutlery. This noise seems to make the headphones make a loud crackling static noise. It’s not just with cutlery, it’s lots of other loud metal or clicking noises. It’s like the ANC can’t handle it. This is definitely a fault with the ANC on these headphones and needs to be fixed.

the noise does not occur when audio mode is OFF, only ANC on and Aware. 

Hi ​@jameskal811 

Thanks for your post!

I can hear similar behaviour from my own Ace headphones, but it is largely to be expected: if an incoming sound is particularly high in frequency, you may hear a part of it before Active Noise Cancellation has time to react, or if the noise is loud enough to max out the microphone array, not all of the soundwave will be inverted to cancel out the original, resulting in what you are able to hear.

This should be largely limited to unusual circumstances and particularly loud noises, however.

I rather suspect that any replacement will sound the same, but if you want to make sure and go ahead with the replacement, then by all means please do so.

This is not limited to Sonos - any audio devices with Active Noise Cancellation will likely experience something similar, to one degree or another. For example, here is Bose describing something similar.

This is not a Quality Control issue.

I hope this helps.

Yes, I have the same issue with loud noises exceeding the ANC mics’ threshold, and it makes a popping sound and sort of amplifies it for a second. Other ANC headphones I’ve tried (mid range or higher) don’t do this. With ANC/transparency both off using them in regular passive noise-blocking mode, I don’t have any issues, but the sound quality is definitely worse (less rich/lower detail). Using the EQ doesn’t bring it back to the default sound (EQ at 0) with ANC on.

Glad I’m not the only one having this issue. I just sold my AirPods Max and kind of wish I hadn’t as I never had these ANC issues with my AirPods Max. 

I can confirm I have this same issue and it’s repeatable. 
My other branded ANC headphones have never made me nearly s*** my pants or hurt my ears with a loud POP/BANG while carrying out a mundane task. 
In my case, I was simply emptying the dishwasher and I dropped the stainless steel knives into the cutlery tray - CRACK/BANG!!!  the rest of the cutlery rack went flying across the counter top. Couldn't make up my mind if I nearly s*** myself or nearly had a heart attack. 
Not had the headphones a month yet and now not wanting to wear them again. 
And before anyone suggests turning ANC off, I didn’t pay premium prices for plain headphones!

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