Sonos · Headphones

Sonos Ace

The only headphone here that takes TV audio off a soundbar mid-episode — and the only real reason to choose it over the other two.

Our take. Buy it for the Sonos hand-off, or do not buy it at all.

  • TV audio hand-off to Sonos soundbars, unmatched here
  • aptX Lossless, the widest codec set of the three
  • Bluetooth 5.4, the newest radio here
  • 312 g — 58 g heavier than both rivals
  • Setup requires a Sonos account and the Sonos app
  • aptX Lossless needs a Snapdragon Sound Android device

Where to buy

No verified price yet. We show a price only when we can name the shop it came from and the moment we saw it.

Sonos came to headphones late and built this one around a single feature the other two cannot match: a button moves the audio from a Sonos soundbar to the headphone and back, mid-episode, without touching the television. If you already own the soundbar, that is the difference between a headphone you reach for in the evening and one you do not. Sonos names the compatible bars — Arc Ultra, Arc, Beam and Ray — so this is a specification you can check rather than a promise.

If you do not own one, the case gets much harder. At 312 grams it is 58 grams heavier than both rivals, which weigh 254 grams each. Weight is the specification that decides how a headphone feels after two hours, and 58 grams is not a rounding error on something that sits on your head for a working day.

The codec support is the widest here on paper: SBC, AAC, aptX Adaptive and aptX Lossless. The qualifier matters. Sonos states that lossless over Bluetooth requires an Android device with Qualcomm Snapdragon Sound. On an iPhone, or on an Android phone without that chipset, the feature is simply not available to you, and the specification quietly becomes AAC like everything else.

Battery matches the Sony at thirty hours with cancellation on, dropping to twenty-four for calls, and the three-minute quick charge returns three hours. Bluetooth 5.4 is the newest radio of the three. None of that closes a 58-gram gap on its own, but it does mean the Ace is not a compromised product outside its one trick — it is a good headphone with an unusually specific reason to exist.

Where it is unambiguously strong is build. The earcup and headband construction is the cleanest of the three, and the pads are magnetic, which makes replacement trivial. Earcup pads are the part that fails first on every headphone in this class, usually around year three, and a headphone whose pads you can swap in ten seconds has a longer usable life than one whose pads are glued.

It also folds flat, which Sonos states in its own announcement — as do both rivals, so treat that as table stakes rather than a differentiator. The honest reading of this specification sheet is narrow: a very good headphone with one exceptional feature and one clear weakness, and what is under your television decides which of the two matters more.

Specifications

Battery, ANC on
30 h listening · 24 h calls
Weight
312 g
Bluetooth
5.4
Codecs
SBC, AAC, aptX Lossless, aptX Adaptive
Quick charge
3 min = 3 h · full charge up to 3 h
TV hand-off
Sonos Arc Ultra, Arc, Beam, Ray
Folds flat
Yes

Where these numbers come from

Every specification on this page is taken from the manufacturer’s own documentation. Here is what we read, and when.

How it compares