Retired Sonos Staff

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The long-awaited first headphones: Sonos Ace

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Today we are announcing the launch of our first-ever headphones, Sonos Ace, marking the brand’s long-awaited entry into the personal listening category. As a leading innovator in sound, Sonos is now using its renowned audio and design expertise to transform the way we listen on headphones.

The premium over-the-ear Bluetooth® headphones feature breathtaking lossless and spatial audio, world-class Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and Aware Mode, as well as the most precise and immersive home theater experience possible using Sonos’ new TrueCinema technology. Sonos Ace will be available globally in both Black and Soft White.

Superior Sound on a Personal Level

Artfully crafted and masterfully tuned, Sonos Ace defies expectations with a range of features that bring the best of Sonos to headphones.

Indulge in high-fidelity sound: Savor every second of your favorite song, podcast or friend’s phone call thanks to Sonos Ace’s two custom-designed drivers that render each frequency with impeccable precision and clarity.
Your own private cinema: Sonos Ace lets you enjoy a surround sound home theater experience while giving your household the gift of quiet. Instantly swap the TV audio from a compatible Sonos soundbar to Sonos Ace with just the tap of a button. Spatial audio with Dolby Atmos envelops you in dramatically detailed sound from all directions and dynamic head tracking keeps you centered in the action even if you need to grab a blanket or reach for the snack bowl. Coming later this year, Sonos’ all-new TrueCinema technology precisely maps your space then renders a complete surround sound system for a listening experience so realistic you’ll forget you’re wearing headphones.
Turn the world on or off: Make personal listening even more personal with Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), or activate Aware mode when you want more awareness of your surroundings - be it walking on a busy street or working in the office.

Day-long battery life and ultra-fast charge: Listen or talk for up to 30 hours with an extended, energy-efficient battery life. Ultra fast charging ensures you’ll never miss a beat - get 3 hours of battery life with a quick 3-minute charge using the included USB-C cable.

Elegant Design and Long-Lasting Comfort

Sonos Ace was made to look and feel as good as it sounds. Its distinctive, slim profile beautifully blends metal accents with a sleek matte finish, complementing any style no matter how fast trends move.

Endless Comfort: Sonos Ace uses lightweight, premium materials for an airy fit that gently hugs your head. Its pillowy soft memory foam interior is wrapped in vegan leather, while a custom headband and ear cups that hide the hinge create the perfect acoustic seal without catching on hair.
Intuitive Design: Wearing and storing Sonos Ace is a breeze - contrasting colors inside the ear cups subtly signal which way to put the headphones on and beautifully-tactile buttons make controls easy to use while wearing them. When you’re done listening, put Sonos Ace away effortlessly thanks to its fold flat design that fits snugly in its lightweight travel case.
Responsibly Made: Sonos Ace is built to last and made for daily wear. The headphones feature replaceable ear cushions, circular materials that allow us to use 17% less virgin plastic, and a 75% recycled felt travel case made from plastic bottles. Engineered to drive energy efficiency, wear detection pauses your music when you remove Sonos Ace from your ears, minimizing the need for charging.

Sonos Ace will be available on June 5 for $449 USD (499 EUR, 449 GBP, 699 AUD). For more information, visit sonos.com, and follow along on @sonos.

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B

Bestevaer

Enthusiast I

I'm really struggling to find use cases where the Sonos Ace would be a viable option and also worth the price.

If you have any device next to your tv with Bluetooth capabilities then the use case of the Ace gets stretched thin already.

Imagine that you can add an Aptx-HD- or LL USB dongle to that device. Then I would prefer the Aptx dongle to the Sonos setup.

Let's say you have an htpc. This will give you the option to play all your music from your NAS. Stream from your preferred music services. And watch movies. This all wireless with Aptx-HD....

B

btodd78

Lyricist II

Marco.B

Hi everyone,

Went through the conversation here and will answer some of the questions I saw:

Is the audio from the Arc that can be sent to the Ace headphones only limited to TV audio? If I were to send line-in audio from a turntable or play a song from my music library from the Sonos app to the Arc, can it be sent to the Ace headphones too?

Yes, it is limited to TV audio. Only TV audio (via HDMI or optical) can stream to Sonos Ace.

I can’t think of a more limited use case than what they decided to implement. Lets make sonos headphones that only work with three of our products (one to start with), you can only use it to listen to tv audio, and only one person at a time. I can’t believe that the market research said that this would be a major hit.

O

osm

The Sonos App is a ‘controller’ App, not a player - it has never been a player. The audio source plays direct to the connected Sonos products. At the moment that’s been over a wireless connection, I don’t know if that’s going to happen over a Bluetooth connection, we will have to wait and see.

Always having been a controller up to now doesn’t mean the app can’t or won’t gain new functionality in relation to new products

I suspect there are licensing/contract issues with the Sonos mobile app acting as a music player. For example, Spotify probably wants users to use their app, with all the features these built into it, when playing music from your phone. They don’t want users to experience it through a 3rd party app. So if the Sonos app were to ever become a player as well as controller, or Sonos just made a separately player app, I am thinking it would exclude any music service. That means it would be for Sonos radio, aux sources in your system, TV audio, and local libraries.

That would be perfect! (the bold bit)

I don’t know that aux and TV audio makes sense. You really need to be at home to control these sources, so what would be the benefit of playing the audio away from home. It would also likely require cloud resources, possible something Sonos would want to charge a subscription fee for. I’m sure someone has a need for it, but probably not a big priority for a lot of people.

I’m not suggesting there would be any benefit in accessing these away from home. But I’d like to be able to access Sonos aux ports from wireless headphones whilst at home (and this could be a big point attraction for many). What I’m suggesting is that if there is no possibility of direct audio swap between non-soundbar Sonos speakers and the headphones (it sounds like there isn’t) perhaps Sonos could consider using the phone as a bridge between aux and headphones. If they don’t want to consider providing this functionality for their own app I wonder if they could consider providing an API for 3rd party developers to implement this.

That leaves local libraries. Sonos isn’t doing great with local libraries right now, and it’s not exactly a growing market. Besides, Plex already offers this service and works at home through Sonos or away from home.

If they did provide a way to use the phone to bridge access to aux ports it would also make sense to do it for local libraries for completeness. But local libraries aren’t really any issue on their own. There are lots of options including the one you mentioned which could be used to play local library on a phone. The main difficulty is access to Sonos aux inputs.

Bumper

Is there a technical reason why the audio swap feature can only work with soundbars, or is it technically possible that support could come to other Sonos speakers in the future (even if no commitment could be made now)? I noticed speculation earlier in the thread that it might relate to the method by which soundbars link to surround speakers and subs, which other speakers don’t possess. But would be nice if someone from Sonos could comment.

As others have mentioned it would be good if we could audio swap other speakers in order to pipe system aux input into the headphones.

The Sonos Ace connects to the soundbar in the same way as a surround speaker using 5Ghz WiFi. This won't work with other Sonos speakers than a soundbar.

I have surrounds connected to my amp in the same way. Why is there no amp support? (or is it one of the upcoming features)

S

sonosstec

Contributor I

Please add grouping with existing speakers, would have been a day 1 order/pre-order with that - can’t even easily stream Sonos radio with this which is upsetting - thank you.

R

Ralpfocus

Prodigy III

Like many i’m disappointed that these are not zone players. I had assumed that the long wait was because sonos was solving the challenges of bt/ WiFi/ TV link, sadly I was wrong. Maybe some updates will get us there in a year or so but until then it seems to me that we have a me too product with the trick of connecting to your TV via a sonos arc.

Oh well, I will keep an eye open for a update but if I have a need for a set of Anc headphones then sadly I may find that the competition gets my money

melvimbe

Is the audio from the Arc that can be sent to the Ace headphones only limited to TV audio? If I were to send line-in audio from a turntable or play a song from my music library from the Sonos app to the Arc, can it be sent to the Ace headphones too?

Yes, it is limited to TV audio. Only TV audio (via HDMI or optical) can stream to Sonos Ace.

Thanks for the info.

That seems like an odd limitation, and pretty much kills using Ace for anything other than as bluetooth headphones for me.

Danny

W

willnn81

Lyricist II

Hi @melvimbe

When the headphones are bonded to an Arc, will they be able to play audio that the Arc zone/room is playing regardless of source? I understand that they will play TV source, but if you are playing audio from a streaming source, aux input in another zone (turntable), or local library, will the headphones play that audio?

The linked-to soundbar must be actively playing the source for Ace to play too.

If the headphones are playing audio, will the Arc and bonded speakers be able to play audio as well?

Only if Ace is playing from a Bluetooth source. If playing Arc’s audio, Arc will not play too.

I see that Sonos is selling a bundled pair of headphones. Can 2 headphones be bonded to the same Arc?

No. We’ve conducted user research and learned the most common use case for wearing headphones with a home theater is for viewing content alone, so you don’t disturb others in your household. We’ll continue to learn how customers are using Sonos Ace and explore additional features over time.

This is included in a number of the replies but to add another voice to the feedback I’m disappointed by a couple facts shared by Sonos in the response here:

That this product can’t be used as a separate zone - I appreciate that I could use it as a bluetooth device connected to my phone but this downplays my investment in the SONOS ecosystem of products and makes me now look at competitor bluetooth headphones.
That you can’t have two headphones connected to the same sound source. My use case may be more unique as stated above by market research, but my wife and I like watching something together after the kids go to bed and using headphones together so we don’t wake them with the noise of the home theater system. This would have been very easily done if they could be setup as zones that we’d pair but since (a) it has to be paired with an Arc and (b) two headsets can’t be paired with the same Arc, then this product holds significantly less value to me.

We currently have sennheiser headphones that pair to the same sennheiser base via optical from our TV. Will continue to use that setup until something better comes along.

Bumper

That you can’t have two headphones connected to the same sound source. My use case may be more unique as stated above by market research, but my wife and I like watching something together after the kids go to bed and using headphones together so we don’t wake them with the noise of the home theater system. This would have been very easily done if they could be setup as zones that we’d pair but since (a) it has to be paired with an Arc and (b) two headsets can’t be paired with the same Arc, then this product holds significantly less value to me.

Apple is able to do 2 airpod headphones connected to their Apple TV, I’ve used this feature on occasion. Probably not better than Sennheisers but if you are an apple user you may already have the headphones and can try it out. This seems like it would be a common use case so maybe it’s a feature for the future.

Jeffrey_35

Headliner III

Is the audio from the Arc that can be sent to the Ace headphones only limited to TV audio? If I were to send line-in audio from a turntable or play a song from my music library from the Sonos app to the Arc, can it be sent to the Ace headphones too?

Yes, it is limited to TV audio. Only TV audio (via HDMI or optical) can stream to Sonos Ace.

Thanks for the info.

That seems like an odd limitation, and pretty much kills using Ace for anything other than as bluetooth headphones for me.

So, what you are saying @Corry P is that even if I have an Arc set up and want to listen to Apple Music or other music service through my tv (Apple TV) using the app(s) on that device I cannot do that? That seems odd.

Despite the trainwreck the app is, I want a centralized place to access my music services (as I have a half dozen I use). That was the benefit of having a universal location like the Sonos app instead of hopping around at home. I want that at home and I want that on a plane and I want that anywhere using my Ace.

I wonder if all of these Ace limitations are self created by Sonos to keep us purchasing other Sonos products or some ridiculousness. For example, I have an old Play 3 in my office. Our house is very open. If I had Ace headphones and access through wifi I would just use them in my office and ditch the Play 3 so no one else has to listen to what I listen to (very different musical tastes than the family).

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”

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