Can The New Sonos Ace Headphones Unseat The AirPods Max? An Editor’s Review

Just when I thought we’d hit capacity on mid-tier consumer headphones, Sonos made its long-awaited entrance. We’ve got classics like Apple, Beats, Bose, Marshall, and Sony. We’ve got luxury plays from Bowers & Wilkins, Bang & Olufsen, and most recently Dyson. Numbers differ, but the consumer headphone market is a multi-billion dollar industry. Statista, the best publicly-available option, values the market at $2.4 billion domestically and $18 billion globally. In short, there’s a lot of money to be made off our active noise cancelling obsession, and there’s a lot of shitty attempts to enter the market.

So, did Sonos do it right? Does the brand new Sonos Ace move me in any way? Surprisingly, yes. After a couple months of testing, I think these are some of the best headphones available. At $449, they’re good for music listening and travel, but they’re best-in-class for at-home TV-watching headphones.

Pair with Sonos Arc, $899

First, what makes them stand out?

One thing, Sonos Audio Swap. Everything else that’s great about these headphones—ANC, spatial audio, lossless streaming—other headphones do just as well. Audio Swap establishes these as TV-watching headphones, a category where they face little to no competition.

When you have a Sonos soundbar, Audio Swap uses the HDMI connection to pull hi-fi sound from the TV and shares it with the headphones via Bluetooth. (Currently, this is only available with the Sonos Arc, but the brand is promising compatibility with lesser soundbars as soon as possible.) For apartment living, it’s great. My girlfriend and I are both guilty of holding unpredictable late-night movie-watching hours long after the other has gone to sleep. Normally, there are two options. 1) Movie watcher tells sleeper to wear earplugs and get over it. 2) Movie watcher respectfully turns the sound down so low that the dialogue is impossible to hear. Sonos Audio Swap is the fix we’ve both craved. The Dolby Atmos spatial audio makes it feel like you’re listening on a proper surround sound system, but it’s all within your own head.

Full transparency, though, this is not a new concept. You can already stream TV audio to a pair of spatial audio-equipped headphones with Apple TV 4K and a pair of AirPods Max. The difference is that the Sonos home entertainment ecosystem takes it up a notch.

See, since Sonos is already so deep into home audio, the Ace gets built into that infrastructure. The most obvious example is in the TrueCinema technology. At the time of writing, the software is still getting worked out for a consumer rollout, but I got a little taste at an exclusive Sonos media event. TrueCinema will use the room-mapping capabilities of the Sonos soundbar to determine what your movie-watching experience sounds like in various positions across the room. Then, it shares that information with the headphones, so that when you’re sitting on your sofa, it sounds exactly the same as when the audio is coming from your soundbar. And if you walk around the room, the spatial audio center doesn’t move with you, so you get a different listening experience. Sonos is trying to replicate the experience of watching TV without headphones while wearing headphones. An ambitious goal that I think will pay off big.

Ok, shut up about watching TV. Are they good day-to-day headphones?

Yes, they’re amazing for travel, music, podcast or audiobook listening, and everything else… But pretty much all the headphones in this $300-$600 category I’m talking about are. When you’re comparing any of these models, you have to dig deep to find differences.

For me, I split the category into two sections, but it’s a bit arbitrary. In my mind, there are music headphones and podcast/audiobook headphones. Podcast or audiobook headphones are Bose and Sony, because they do the best ANC, or Bowers & Wilkins, because the bright house sound is good for dialogue. Music headphones are all-rounders like B&O, Apple, and the Sonos Ace. (Beats are in their own bass-heavy category.)

The best compliment I can give the Sonos Ace is that they’re the best competitor to the AirPods Max, which I love. The sound is full, from bottom to top. On the low end, you get deep bass and those rich low-mids that make you feel music. In the middle, it’s true to life. On the high end, you get crisp treble and vocals that cut through the rest of it. As expected, Sonos hit all the notes it needed to.

And how do they stack up to the AirPods Max in terms of usability? About the same. They connect quickly, and the Sonos app lets you play with EQ settings. They look good in either the white or black colorway. The headband is sturdy, with stainless steel interior components, and smooth when adjusting. The case is fine. To be nitpicky, I think the recycled plastic feels a bit cheap. But the case itself is sturdy, slim, and great for travel.

Speaking of travel, that’s where I think these would overtake the AirPods Max for me. Their ever so slightly lighter, but feel just as substantial. The case is hard and about the size of a book, so it’s easy to slip into a crowded carry-on without worrying about damaging the headphones. But the biggest win is that Sonos includes a USB-C to 3.5mm jack in the case. That means no dongles or stupid pre-travel purchases. From day one, you’re good to go with in-flight entertainment.

Alright, final verdict. Who should buy the Sonos Ace?

If you’ve already got a Sonos home audio system, or have grand ambitions to buy a Sonos home audio system, buy a pair. If you’re a frequent flyer who’s always wanted a pair of headphones with a better travel case and included a 3.5mm adapter, buy a pair.

The music performance is great, but it’s not miles better than the rest of the options out there. What I can say for a fact is that the Sonos Ace are the best home entertainment headphones on the market. If you can drop the money on both the Ace and Arc ($1,350 total), there’s not a better home audio setup out there. If you’re not interested in sitting at home watching TV through your headphones, maybe play the field.