SONOS ACE WIRELESS HEADPHONES

Headphone type	On Ear
Compatibility	Android, iOS
Bluetooth Version	5.4
Supported Codecs	SBC, AAC, AptX, Aptx Lossless
Drivers	Custom designed 40 mm dynamic driver
Battery life	Up to 30 hours
Weight	312 g

 

PRICE R12 999.00

SUPPLIED BY Planetworld 0860 65 64 63

AVAILABLE THROUGH www.digitalexperience.co.za / www.stax.co.za / www.e-piphany.co.za / www.audicoonline.co.za / www.shopandship.co.za / www.newworld.co.za

WEBSITE www.planetworld.co.za / info@planetworld.co.za

 

 

The Short Of It…

Packed with incredible technology, comfortable to wear, and most importantly, great musicality.

 

The Long Of It…

Sonos’ first ever headphones, the Sonos Ace, were launched at a disastrous time for the company, where it managed to amass such negative customer reaction over its App’s last upgrade that the company’s CEO, Patrick Spence, had to offer an apology amidst customers threatening to drop the brand and move to another one. Fortunately, the company understood the brevity of what had happened and went into overdrive to fix what had gone wrong. The result is now an App that provides users with an experience equal to, or better than the original App, before the problematic update.

Nevertheless, the uproar couldn’t have come at a worse time for the company, as in several ways it took attention away from the launch of a set of headphones that are packed with some truly awesome technology that deserves an accolade in so many ways. The wizardry that has been squeezed into these innocuous-looking headphones is simply astounding, and I’m going to have to do some summarising in places to avoid having to write a 24-page review!

Let’s start with the basics – the packaging.

As with all products in this price range, there’s zero skimping on presentation. The headphones come in a solid box, within which you’ll find the sturdy carry case. Inside are the headphones, booklet, Type-C to Type-C cable for charging, and a Type-C to 3.5 mm cable for wired connections. There’s also a small, dedicated carry-case for the cables. Not sure why it’s magnetic, though…

 

The headphones themselves are attractive in a quiet, unassuming way, which I far prefer to the overly flashy, gaudy designs available en masse. You know quality when you see it. Light to the touch, the Aces are easy to adjust for the best possible fit, and the cups are soft and comfortable to the ears. Incidentally, the ear cups are magnetically detachable and replaceable – ensuring that Sonos has improved the product’s lifespan. The ear cups are made with memory foam padding, coated with vegan PU leather to ensure comfortability for all day wear.

There are no obvious L and R markings on the phones, but pay a bit more attention to the inside of the cups and you’ll see the relevant markings with different colours. The cups themselves can rotate 90 degrees for ease of storage, while internal sensors detect when the headphones are removed from your head, automatically pausing the music you’re listening to.

But that’s not all – the Ace also house four microphones within each of the cups, used for cellphone calls as well as Active Noise Cancellation. The ANC works pretty well, but as I’ve mentioned before on other reviews, nothing can completely filter out the chaos of a small home with a 5 year old Energizer Bunny. To be fair, ANC is more aimed at drowning constant sounds, such as airplane engines.

As mentioned in the Stats Panel above, the headphones have a claimed battery life of 30 hours. This is of course going to be dependent on a number of factors, such as how many features you’re using, volume levels and so forth. But their fast charging ability is truly impressive –  3 minutes of charge for 3 hours of listening!

As with most wireless headphones in this segment, there are also controls on each side. The left cup has the Type-C input and the power/connect button, while the right features a button for toggling between ANC and Transparency modes and a 3-position content key slider switch, which can be used for volume, skipping tracks and so forth.

I have never managed to master these options on any headphones I have tested. Without fail, I have managed to end calls by accident, skip tracks when I didn’t mean to, disconnect the headphones from systems… Ugly, just ugly. But that’s just me. No doubt the planet is populated with people who, unlike me, possess fine motor control skills and co-ordination, and for whom these controls are perfectly usable.

But now there’s another (pardon me here for trying to be witty) ace up the Ace’s sleeve here. That slider button has yet another function, which is TV Audio Swap. This is pretty fascinating. It allows you to connect to the Sonos Arc Soundbar, so that if you’d like to have some late night (or early morning) movie watching, a long press on the slider switch will connect you to the soundbar so that you can watch to your heart’s content and not disturb anyone else in the house. Future planned software updates will allow these headphones to connect to a wider range of soundbars.

 

But that’s a simplistic explanation. These headphones are also able to take advantage of Sonos’ TrueCinema calibration, which uses software to create a sound experience from your headphones that matches the spatial experience of what you would be getting from the soundbar, particularly when watching Dolby Atmos soundtracks.

With Head Tracking, the Ace’s built-in sensors will actually even tailor your acoustic experience according to how your head is angled. I tried it out with just standard music tracks to see how it worked, and it was pretty amazing to hear the music positioning change as I moved my head.

Okay… We’re almost on Page 3 of my review, and I haven’t even got to how the headphones sound! Which I think is pretty important, despite the technological marvels, because if the audio experience is off, then all else is futile.

I have to be honest up front and say that on-ears have traditionally not been a favourite of mine. I prefer over-ears, because I have found the on-ear headphones’ delivery to be too immediate, whereas the over-ears give more ‘breathing space’ to the music.

Well, somehow Sonos has managed to avoid this with its Ace headphones. No idea how, but the experience wasn’t anything like I’ve experienced before.

My listening was done via Spotify and Tidal, the latter being my usual get-go for MQA files before it all went pear-shaped, the MQA bunch kinda went bankrupt, Lenbrook bought it out, and now apparently there’s yet another music site that audiophiles need to subscribe to in order to experience the best in quality audio streaming. I’m so over it all, to be honest, and I doubt that my ears will truly be able to experience it.

Rant over.

I’m largely an ‘80s fan, but with a multi-personality disorder thrown in, so my listening choice is somewhat varied. Eric Clapton (My Father’s Eyes), Ed Sheeran (Photograph), Imagine Dragons (Thunder), Katherine McPhee (Over It), Martin Page (In The House of Stone And Light), and of course some Pink Floyd, Mike Oldfield and Sarah McLachlan. Then some Alan Walker, Ava Max and Dua Lipa to wrap it all up.

I did find the Sonos Ace a bit bass light initially, especially with reference to the really low frequencies, but I got used to this because the bass that the headphones did deliver, was tight and punchy. This is without fail, always preferable to bass-heavy headphones that drown out the mids and highs, essentially ruining what you’re listening to. Interestingly, I read other reviews where reviewers said the exact opposite, that they felt the bass was too heavy – just goes to show how everyone has a different perception of a listening experience.

You can adjust bass/treble and balance via the Sonos App (amongst several other settings), but I generally try and listen to headphones in a ‘neutral’ position wherever possible.

Where the headphones really impressed me, was with guitars (acoustic and electric), pianos and vocals. The guitar work on Pink Floyd’s High Hopes and Coming Back To Life was awesome, equally so with Eric Clapton’s Change The World. But if there was one track where I truly felt that the Aces outshone every single headphone I’ve ever listened to, it was Missy Higgins’ Where I Stood. A really down to basics song musically, but the lyrics, vocals and piano make it so immensely powerful from an emotional reaction point of view. Just stunning.

Out of interest, I added two portable DACs to the equation – one is rated as 32-bit/768 kHz DSD512, while the second was an MQA-capable DAC/THX-certified headphone amplifier. I’m a huge fan of portable DACs, have used and tested several over the years. Some great…some not so great. But the good ones have always managed to add just a bit of extra audio quality to the music, even if miniscule.

I accept that the experience might be purely psychological because you’re expecting to hear a difference, and then do… But then this is treading dangerous territory with the Cable Cultists, and I’ve always found their noisy protests outside my home to be tedious.

But whatever the actual truth, I found that both DACs added a teensy bit more detail and warmth to the music on the mids and in particular the bass, which seemed to open up a bit more. The upper frequencies (particularly wrt the guitars) remained as sparkling clear as before (but never bright, which I find uncomfortable). Bear in mind that this doesn’t reflect on the quality of the headphones’ performance, it’s to do with the DAC’s ability to improve the audio quality of the source – so, in my case, Spotify and Tidal. All in all, still a great musical experience.

Readers of this review must keep in mind that my review only focussed on one aspect of the Ace’s capabilities – their musical abilities. These headphones have so much more to offer when coupled with a home theatre set-up and the TV Audio Swap function, something I have personally missed as a father of a 5 year old, when I so much wanted to enjoy a good film without waking her up.

They really are beautifully musical, great all-rounders that highly deserve a huge amount of praise for the technological marvels they are, and with the promised software upgrades, I suspect will become firm Sonos fans’ favourites for a long time. That these headphones were recognised as one of TIME‘s 2024 Best Inventions says it all…

Andrew Rowland