The long-awaited first headphones: Sonos Ace

How long before these stop working when Sonos releases another product and updates its Sonos app leaving existing customers unsupported.
I’m NOT BUYING, Sonos FIX your APP for ALL customers!!!

Max potential =/= Max volume. 

osm

Whistler wrote:

Let me start by saying I absolutely love the look of the Sonos Ace, especially in white. I even am starting to get used to the new App… But.. and this is a big but for a lot of people I think, why on earth would you not have this headphone act like their own zone within your household? You did it with the Roam and the Move. How is the Ace any different than those speakers? 

Smaller, lighter battery I imagine. In addition, beyond knee jerk reaction to omission I’m not sure the use case for acting like a regular zone is hugely compelling. The only thing we really miss out on by not being able to add as a regular zone is access to Sonos line in ports. This is something I would like, but I suspect I’m in a relatively small portion of the potential user base. Everything else (streaming music services and local music library) can be easily played from other apps. We do also miss out on ability to group the Ace with other speakers in the house but I’m not sure why anyone would want to do that.

I think the user base for being a zone player is greater than one would imagine. there is also just an expectation - well it is a Sonos product so it must work like a Sonos product. Without this there is very little that makes these expensive headphones stand out against the existing very good competition

You loose the ability to access your local library as well as access to line-in. I may not want to have all the services I use in Sonos installed on my phone. BT means that I have to keep my phone with me if I move around. I can see, admittedly few, scenarios where you would want to group with other Sonos speakers. 

Unless there’s a longer term plan to incorporate a Bluetooth TX in a future Sonos product, such as a new Sonos Port, for example. That way the Sonos eco-system could be output to the Ace.

I use a Port now with a 1Mii B03 Pro transmitter and that outputs all Sonos audio, including line-in audio (Turntable etc.) and Sonos Radio to my Sony Headphones… it’s just that setup is no good for TV audio due to the GAD buffer that Sonos uses, but that of course should all be resolved with the new Ace headphones and TV SoundSwap.

On demand: obviously we’re just going on hunches, but I expect Sonos will have done research to determine that there is enough demand for headphones that don’t act as regular zones.

On local library: you don’t lose ability to play this. There are many music player apps that can connect to basic smb network shares. And those who configure their local library using Plex can obviously just use Plex app.

On having to have additional apps on phone to stream music to the headphones: Yes, this will be needed, but given Sonos app is just a controller rather than a player, how would you expect to be able to use the headphones outside the home without doing this? I guess there may be some people who would only ever want to use headphones at home, but presumably this isn’t Sonos’ main target group for this product.

As a frustrated owner of a pair of Bowers & Wilkins PX7 (the faulty model with a muted right ear piece which the quality team doesn’t take responsibility from), I was waiting for Sonos’ approach to headphones. Can’t really tell if I had a list of tech specs or functionality to cross examine. However, WiFi playback, c’mon… it’s synonymous to Sonos! Then I remembered some Audi cars have Sonos speakers. And the car it’s not a zone in the car owner system, right? No WiFi playback there. 
 

Pre-ordered one pair of black Aces. Time will tell. I do expect sound clarity and build quality.
 

With all due respect, speak for yourself. That feature would be immensely compelling for me. It is the only reason I’ve been waiting patiently for years for Sonos headphones.  Without that feature, the Ace is basically just another pair of bluetooth headphones. And the market is already saturated with them. I get it that people use Sonos in different ways. For me, one of the killer features of the Sonos ecosystem is the ability to integrate numerous streaming services with local files seamless together in one interface. And to easily combine all of those sources into a queue, or multiple queues if you like, one for each zone, and save a queue as a playlist, if you like, a playlist that can combine multiple sources and services. I want my headphones to be a part of that ecosystem. And I want the ability to switch what I’m listening to from playing on speakers to headphones or the other way around. You may use Sonos differently, but for me this is a huge use case.

None of that necessarily requires the headphones to have full WiFi capabilities and be a so-called zone or room in the Sonos system the same vein as the speakers and ports. That integrated software experience could be achieved with the headphones still tethered to phone  by Sonos updating the system controller app with player capabilities (or releasing a separate Sonos player app). For me this would be a more compelling solution to achieving an integrated software experience because you would get the same experience both at home and away from home. Headphones being zones/rooms in the system would only serve to achieve the integrated software experience when using the headphones at home.

Aside from being one (but not the only) way to achieve a unified software experience, what would be other potential benefits of the headphones having full WiFi capabilities and acting as a zone/room in the system? One might be the ability to group the headphones with other speakers in the home for synchronised playback. I really don’t see there being much demand for that. Another is that you wouldn’t need to keep your phone in bluetooth range when wandering about the home with headphones on. But is that really such a big deal? Another is the ability to route system line-in audio to the headphones. This I get and I want this functionality too. But I suspect the number of potential customers for whom this is a crucial feature would be fairly small.

I don’t really see Sonos wanted to turn the Sonos app into a player outside of your home since that doesn’t really sell any speakers for them.  Perhaps a subscription service, but would anybody want to pay for that?  That’s assuming that all the various streaming services would even want to be included in such an aggregator app, instead of having users use the app they’ve develop. 

Grouping would allow you to start playback on speakers in one room, then transfer the audio to your headphones without having to start and stop another stream.  You could get TV audio, local library, and aux sources that are not available through your phone.  Multiple people in the home can use the same pair of headphones without have to deal with connecting/disconnecting bluetooth connections.   There is potentially the ability to have multiple headphone users listening to the same source at the same time. There is also audio quality differences depending on source.

I think there is also some comforting in just knowing that your audio sources area all connected, even if that doesn’t result in a ton of useful functionality you can use. In the same way that you want a Sonos aggreator/player for use away from home despite having separate apps for all your audio needs, consumers would want headphones that are part of the overall system, rather than a separate system tied to bluetooth.   I am good with Ace effectively being BT only, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want more.

My bad.