The long-awaited first headphones: Sonos Ace

It’s not a matter of knowing what customers want, but of what the tech is capable of. Ace do not have all the cpu power of other Sonos devices, presumably to keep weight and power consumption down. For wifi audio processing, it’s relying on the Arc (and other soundbar laters) for much of the heavy lifting. The playbar, being built over a decade ago, doesn’t have the processing power either.

It also assumes Sonos decided to cut off sales to Playbar owners for . . . reasons. It makes no sense that Sonos would do that, unless there is an underlying technical reason which makes it impossible.

Well, you could assume that Sonos is trying to force playbar owners to buy new Arcs too, but given that Sonos is going to enable headphones connect to the Beam Gen 1, which is no longer sells, that argument doesn’t make a lot of sense. In general, Sonos historically tends to give new features to any product, old or new, that has the hardware to handle it.

Danny

Yes, I am. I use my Focal Bathys bluetooth headphones on a daily basis on the road and at work. I will only use the Sonos Ace headphones to take over the sound of my Arc during the night when my kids are sleeping. Since that’s for the moment not possible via Android, Sonos shouldn’t have released them… By the way, they were ordered at a local hifi store, so bringing them back takes 10 minutes.

That’s fair. Thanks for a rational answer, it clears things up.

Well, it’s fair that Ace is not of use for you personally, but just because they do not currently have the feature you want doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t have been released at all.

Sonos can release all the headphones they want, no objection, but for that price you can expect all the announced features to work smoothly. For Android users (at the moment), this is nothing more or less than another bluetooth headphone.

I’m not really sure that’s 100% accurate. You clearly need an iOS app to setup the connection to your Arc, but I don’t know that you need the iOS to operate the audio sway feature after setup. That would mean that your iphone/ipad is involved in the wireless connection between Arc and Ace somehow, which seems unlikely. I suspect that it’s more like trueplay, in that you could borrow an iphone for setup, then never use that phone again. Although there does seem to be some operational controls you’ll want the iPhone for.

I haven’t seen confirmation about that. I do have both android and iphone, and TV audio isn’t crucial to me personally, so I’m not that concerned about it.

Danny

Lyricist III

This is incredibly disappointing - I have a bunch of aging (this gen compatible) Sonos speakers but only a Playbar.. so these headphones are not meant for folks like me I guess - anyone pre-Arc. Of course the expectation amongst most Sonos users I know was in fact that it would have zone capability.. wtf - how could the gurus at Sonos NOT known this? And to think I nearly preordered.. yikes.

It’s not a matter of knowing what customers want, but of what the tech is capable of. Ace do not have all the cpu power of other Sonos devices, presumably to keep weight and power consumption down. For wifi audio processing, it’s relying on the Arc (and other soundbar laters) for much of the heavy lifting. The playbar, being built over a decade ago, doesn’t have the processing power either.

And yet they can pack the tech into the form factor of a Roam and surely things have improved since then. Maybe battery life but there too seems like they could figure out something. As I said.. disappointing.

This is incredibly disappointing - I have a bunch of aging (this gen compatible) Sonos speakers but only a Playbar.. so these headphones are not meant for folks like me I guess - anyone pre-Arc. Of course the expectation amongst most Sonos users I know was in fact that it would have zone capability.. wtf - how could the gurus at Sonos NOT known this? And to think I nearly preordered.. yikes.

It’s not a matter of knowing what customers want, but of what the tech is capable of. Ace do not have all the cpu power of other Sonos devices, presumably to keep weight and power consumption down. For wifi audio processing, it’s relying on the Arc (and other soundbar laters) for much of the heavy lifting. The playbar, being built over a decade ago, doesn’t have the processing power either.

And yet they can pack the tech into the form factor of a Roam and surely things have improved since then. Maybe battery life but there too seems like they could figure out something. As I said.. disappointing.

Roam weighs .95 lbs (.43kgs). Ace weighs .69 lbs (.312 kgs). By reference, Airpod Max is said to weigh .385 grams and too heavy by some consumers. You also have to consider that much of Aces weight needs to go into ear cups (whatever they are called) and band, which the Roam doesn’t have. Then it has additional microphones and computing power reserved for the features Roam doesn’t have. Only then do you have the space/weight for the speakers and audio processing. And you would need to evenly distribute the weight between the two cans, you can just place the heavy battery at the bottom as is done for the Roam and Move.

I’m not saying that it’s possible, but just assuming that all the issues could have been worked out and they just failed or what have you, because the Roam exists, isn’t really considering the differences and unique challenges between that come with headphones.

Danny

Lyricist III

This is incredibly disappointing - I have a bunch of aging (this gen compatible) Sonos speakers but only a Playbar.. so these headphones are not meant for folks like me I guess - anyone pre-Arc. Of course the expectation amongst most Sonos users I know was in fact that it would have zone capability.. wtf - how could the gurus at Sonos NOT known this? And to think I nearly preordered.. yikes.

It’s not a matter of knowing what customers want, but of what the tech is capable of. Ace do not have all the cpu power of other Sonos devices, presumably to keep weight and power consumption down. For wifi audio processing, it’s relying on the Arc (and other soundbar laters) for much of the heavy lifting. The playbar, being built over a decade ago, doesn’t have the processing power either.

And yet they can pack the tech into the form factor of a Roam and surely things have improved since then. Maybe battery life but there too seems like they could figure out something. As I said.. disappointing.

Roam weighs .95 lbs (.43kgs). Ace weighs .69 lbs (.312 kgs). By reference, Airpod Max is said to weigh .385 grams and too heavy by some consumers. You also have to consider that much of Aces weight needs to go into ear cups (whatever they are called) and band, which the Roam doesn’t have. Then it has additional microphones and computing power reserved for the features Roam doesn’t have. Only then do you have the space/weight for the speakers and audio processing. And you would need to evenly distribute the weight between the two cans, you can just place the heavy battery at the bottom as is done for the Roam and Move.

I’m not saying that it’s possible, but just assuming that all the issues could have been worked out and they just failed or what have you, because the Roam exists, isn’t really considering the differences and unique challenges between that come with headphones.

Using the weight comparisons vs the Roam is largely irrelevant don’t you think? It has a larger battery and heavier speakers, bigger case, plus stuff for wireless charging etc etc.. The question is can you have the circuitry small enough to fit in the headset form factor - and the answer is most probably yes. My guess is a big constraint is the size/weight of the battery needed for decent runtime.

Roam weighs .95 lbs (.43kgs). Ace weighs .69 lbs (.312 kgs). By reference, Airpod Max is said to weigh .385 grams and too heavy by some consumers. You also have to consider that much of Aces weight needs to go into ear cups (whatever they are called) and band, which the Roam doesn’t have. Then it has additional microphones and computing power reserved for the features Roam doesn’t have. Only then do you have the space/weight for the speakers and audio processing. And you would need to evenly distribute the weight between the two cans, you can just place the heavy battery at the bottom as is done for the Roam and Move.

I’m not saying that it’s possible, but just assuming that all the issues could have been worked out and they just failed or what have you, because the Roam exists, isn’t really considering the differences and unique challenges between that come with headphones.

Using the weight comparisons vs the Roam is largely irrelevant don’t you think? It has a larger battery and heavier speakers, bigger case, plus stuff for wireless charging etc etc.. The question is can you have the circuitry small enough to fit in the headset form factor - and the answer is most probably yes. My guess is a big constraint is the size/weight of the battery needed for decent runtime.

You mention the Roam as a means of comparison. I know you were referring to the form factor, but if it weight is irrelevant, than so is the form factor. This is also why I mentioned the airpod max since Sonos surely wanted to be well under the weight of what has generally been considered as too heavy.

I’m sure that battery size/weight was an improtant factor, but there’s no reason to be confident that there were no other issues with processing power in the small size of the headphones, especially since what you’re wanting Ace to do is not something that any of it’s competitors can do.. Even if battery is the only issue, why then would you still be disappointed in Sonos knowing that’s an actual issue?

There is plenty of things to be disappointed in Sonos for right now. Your original assumption that Sonos didn’t know that customers want Ace to be a Sonos room, rather than technical limitations preventing that from happening, doesn’t make any sense.

Danny

https://www.getunity.com/?shop#specs

Lyricist III

Roam weighs .95 lbs (.43kgs). Ace weighs .69 lbs (.312 kgs). By reference, Airpod Max is said to weigh .385 grams and too heavy by some consumers. You also have to consider that much of Aces weight needs to go into ear cups (whatever they are called) and band, which the Roam doesn’t have. Then it has additional microphones and computing power reserved for the features Roam doesn’t have. Only then do you have the space/weight for the speakers and audio processing. And you would need to evenly distribute the weight between the two cans, you can just place the heavy battery at the bottom as is done for the Roam and Move.

I’m not saying that it’s possible, but just assuming that all the issues could have been worked out and they just failed or what have you, because the Roam exists, isn’t really considering the differences and unique challenges between that come with headphones.

Using the weight comparisons vs the Roam is largely irrelevant don’t you think? It has a larger battery and heavier speakers, bigger case, plus stuff for wireless charging etc etc.. The question is can you have the circuitry small enough to fit in the headset form factor - and the answer is most probably yes. My guess is a big constraint is the size/weight of the battery needed for decent runtime.

You mention the Roam as a means of comparison. I know you were referring to the form factor, but if it weight is irrelevant, than so is the form factor. This is also why I mentioned the airpod max since Sonos surely wanted to be well under the weight of what has generally been considered as too heavy.

I’m sure that battery size/weight was an improtant factor, but there’s no reason to be confident that there were no other issues with processing power in the small size of the headphones, especially since what you’re wanting Ace to do is not something that any of it’s competitors can do.. Even if battery is the only issue, why then would you still be disappointed in Sonos knowing that’s an actual issue?

There is plenty of things to be disappointed in Sonos for right now. Your original assumption that Sonos didn’t know that customers want Ace to be a Sonos room, rather than technical limitations preventing that from happening, doesn’t make any sense.

Well that makes no sense and I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.. imho the form factor is key in demonstrating that Sonos Tech is possible to squeeze into a smaller size like a headset and no I don’t believe that you must include weight in the discussion (yes, it is a concern for design but not for this comparison). It’s all hypothetical anyway.

I have been really looking forward to these headphones on the assumption that they would function just like any other Sonos device and I could simply add it to my system. I am not going to buy an Arc just to pay for a pair of seemingly decent but expensive bluetooth headphones with this one cool trick when my “decade old” playbar works great. Guess I’ll futz around with my Port and see what I can do there.. such a missed opportunity.

W

wds0001

Prodigy I

FWIW the link below is for the only dedicated home wifi headphones I could find. With this type of price tag and battery life I would not have bought the ACE as a SONOS zone player.

I

iainholmes81

Trending Lyricist I

The Ace already has WiFi receiver/transceiver. It's how it receives Audio from the Arc.

Sonos' decision to omit zone playing capabilities from the Ace is unlikely to be based on hardware restrictions, but rather based on concerns over battery life and issues and added complexity/compatibility issues with the app (bearing in mind they haven't even got Android compatibility working with Ace yet).

These WiFi modules are absolutely miniscule and there would be no issue fitting them into a pair of earcups that are definitely not absolutely crammed to the gills with components.