Hi Team, looking forward to your feedback on these headphones. Since these have snapdragon sound with aptx lossless I’m interesting in knowing if they have better imaging, soundstage and similar noise cancelling than the Bose QC Ultra, if they can beat the Bose QC Ultra in those categories I’ll be looking to purchase the Ace. I’ve heard the Ultras are a great headphones but could be better for music, you’re paying big bucks for these types of headphones so you’d expect stellar sound. Thanks

The two big things for me is how they work as TV headphones if you have an Arc (related: can these be used with an Xbox Series X with Arc pass through and thus be viable video game headphones, too?) and how they handle Dolby Atmos music via Apple Music.

My main focus for Sonos Ace would at home use with Sonos Arc and therefore how good the 7.1.4 dome sound when watching Atmos movies from Apple TV 4K or playing games from PS5. Specifically how hey compare vs dedicated solutions like AirPods Pro/Max and Sony Pulse Elite.

The other point is whether with those headphones you get Spatial Audio when watching Atmos tv shows and movies on your iPhone/iPad.

Thank you

I just purchased these. They sound very flat and “unexciting” to me. Yet, all the “tech” reviewers are giving them so much praise. It seems one of the outlier negative reviews is from one of the audio focused review sites, What Hi-Fi. I am eagerly awaiting this review by another audio professional to know if I’m just hearing wrong! Lol. Please compare to AirPods Max, Bowers and Wilkins Px7 S2e, Seinhesser Momentum 4.

I’m looking forward to see if these match the QC Ultra ANC but without the wired latency as I’m a very noise sensitive person but would also like using them for rhythm games.

Could yo compare to airpods max, sony xm5 and another like beoplay hx and bower & wilkins px7?

Also compare the multipoint bluetooth for ios vs airpods multidevice conectivity on the apple ecosystem, the standby mode if is exit, etc

Thanks

Would like to know what are the best EQ settings for these Sonos Ace thank you

Interested to see if these sound better than the QC Ultra. I want a wireless pair that sounds as good as my wired pairs without costing $1k+ like the Mark Levinson No 5909 or the Dali IO-12

I’m interested to learn about the EQ settings. I recently obtained a demo unit at work and I find myself baffled. The mid range feels very lackluster to me, whole the bass and higher end sound great. I checked out the Sonos app on my phone and was greatly disappointed by the lack of EQ settings I saw: Bass and Treble.

Maybe I need to dig around more but so far I’m heavily disappointed. I like the build quality, like the low end, think the ANC is fantastic… but the mid range… well I’m interested to see your measurements in a few weeks.

Wow, those ANC results are fantastic! Similar to what I heard when I tried them. Stood toe to toe with my Bose QC Ultra Headphones. Just wish it had more upper treble presence in its tonal balance. The EQ is very barebones and helps a bit tho.

Vanessa, I think is interesting to compare with the big boys like airpods max, sony xm5, bowers & wilkins px7, beoplay hx, bose ultra confort and anothers cheaper like beats studio pro and souncore q45

Also as an apple user how it works with the apple ecosystem, some things like multidevice, standby, conecting first time to a new iphone, etc

Also spatial audio and dolby atmos works with apple music on ios or not?

Thanks

Jun 21, 2024 12:54 PM By jbpro

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Vanessa, I think is interesting to compare with the big boys like airpods max, sony xm5, bowers & wilkins px7, beoplay hx, bose ultra confort and anothers cheaper like beats studio pro and souncore q45 Also as an apple user how it works with the apple ecosystem, some things like multidevice, standby, conecting first time to a new iphone, etc Also spatial audio and dolby atmos works with apple music on ios or not? Thanks

I tried the Sonos Ace with my existing Apple ecosystem and it worked well. You won’t get the iCloud based automatic device switching that AirPods have but the Ace can simultaneously connect to 2 devices and any more paired devices that tries to connect to it will just replace the 2nd device that is connected. Connecting to an iPhone for the first time is simple. You just put the Ace into pairing mode by holding the power button for about 5 seconds and select it in the Bluetooth settings of your iPhone. After that, the Ace when powered on will auto connect to that iPhone when it is in range.

Dolby Atmos from Apple Music can work on any connected speaker or headphone since the decoding is done on the device. You will have to activate head tracking in the Sonos app to get the Ace to track your head movements to further enhance the effect.

would like to also seem them go up against sennheiser momentum 4. that was what i was going to get until these came out but not sure about sound. Have not been able to listen at stores near me.

Had a chance to listen to these today at Best Buy. Could not compare them to momentum 4 as none on display. Also was locked into what music Sonos set up on display. I don t know nothing jumped out at me to day these are best headphones. They are comfortable and sound fine. I’m still leaning towards momentum’s

Hi everyone!

I’ve been keeping up with the thread here (and thanks for sharing your questions and comments with us!). The feedback is great and is something we try to take into account for our reviews. Just to give you an update, we’re nearing the end of the writing process. However, the review will be published next week; Monday is a national holiday, so our offices are closed. Happy Canada Day in advance. :)

jbpro and Drew64, those are all great suggestions; I’ll definitely add some more comparisons into the review since the Ace are going head to head with the best wireless headphones currently on the market as well as being compared to some cheaper, yet still big player headphones like the Q45. As for Apple support, Protomize is right; pairing with iOS is pretty simple and just requires holding down the power/Bluetooth button for five seconds. As long as you’re listening to Dolby Atmos content, you’ll be able to take advantage of this feature. The headphones also have Head Tracking via the companion app, so you just have to toggle it on to use it with your Dolby Atmos content.

Protomize, I was pleasantly surprised about their ANC too! I wore them around the office for a bit and they were able to block out quite a bit of sound. I also agree with you that the bass/treble sliders are pretty limiting. I wish there was a bit more control over their sound, but the Ace are Sonos’ first headphones; hopefully in the future, they consider expanding their adjustments to include a graphic or parametric EQ.

In the meantime, if you have any other questions or would like us to look into something, please let us know and we’ll do our best to check them out. I hope you all have a good weekend! :)

Did you by chance also test the TV Audio Swap feature? Its quite unique and should enable a low latency wireless connection.

Jun 26, 2024 03:28 PM By Drew64

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Had a chance to listen to these today at Best Buy. Could not compare them to momentum 4 as none on display. Also was locked into what music Sonos set up on display. I don t know nothing jumped out at me to day these are best headphones. They are comfortable and sound fine. I’m still leaning towards momentum’s

I currently have the Momentum 4’s and have been having a lot of connectivity issues with them (random disconnects while listening, automatic device swap failing, constantly turning themselves on in their case). They sound fantastic and the battery life is the best available, but if you value other features like ANC, transparency mode, or call quality they’re just okay. I haven’t been able to compare with the Sonos yet but I just ordered a pair to see how they stack up.

Didn’t see comparison to momentum 4 at all.

Jul 02, 2024 03:12 PM By Drew64

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Didn’t see comparison to momentum 4 at all.

Hi Drew64, the comparison with the MOMENTUM 4 is here. :)

From the review it is not clear how good is the TV audio swap feature and especially the virtual 7.1.4 channels when compared to to an AirPod Max / Pro 2 when watching movies or a Pulse Elite on PS5 gaming

There’s a mistake in the “case” section. “Inside the case is a pouch for the cables that magnetically attach to the outer case.” is supposed to be “Inside the case is a pouch for the cables that magnetically attaches to the outer case.”

Jul 02, 2024 10:37 AM By MamaLilla

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Did you by chance also test the TV Audio Swap feature? Its quite unique and should enable a low latency wireless connection.

Hi MamaLilla

We did get a chance to test the TV Audio Swap feature. Setting up the headphones and using the feature gave us no issues. We tried listening to movies and TV shows, and the audio-video delay was noticeable. The voices were not properly synced with the lip movement, and it took us out of the movie/TV show experience when using the feature. That said, after using them for a while, we started to get accustomed to it, but it was annoying. We will update our review shortly to include more of our findings.

Cheers, Dagobiet.

Jul 02, 2024 07:28 PM By Giacrent

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From the review it is not clear how good is the TV audio swap feature and especially the virtual 7.1.4 channels when compared to to an AirPod Max / Pro 2 when watching movies or a Pulse Elite on PS5 gaming

Hi Giacrent

We will update our review to clarify and add our impression of the Audio Swap Feature.

Cheers, Dagobiet.

Jul 03, 2024 04:22 AM By 657ALEX657

12

There’s a mistake in the “case” section. “Inside the case is a pouch for the cables that magnetically attach to the outer case.” is supposed to be “Inside the case is a pouch for the cables that magnetically attaches to the outer case.”

Thanks for that catch. It’s now fixed in the review.

Will you be looking at the new Cambridge audio P100 headphones announced. Looks like a winner. Replaceable battery , low cost compared to others

Which bluetooth dongle did you use for your AptX latency measurements? How did you get the dongle to switch between AptX adaptive high quality and low latency mode?

Furthermore, why didn’t you measure the latency in soundswap mode? It should be easiliy accomplished with an HDMI splitter.

Jul 10, 2024 06:49 AM By Felix123FFM

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Which bluetooth dongle did you use for your AptX latency measurements? How did you get the dongle to switch between AptX adaptive high quality and low latency mode? Furthermore, why didn’t you measure the latency in soundswap mode? It should be easiliy accomplished with an HDMI splitter.

Hi there,

For our Aptx Latency measurements, we used the Creative BT-W5 dongle which gives you the ability to toggle between Aptx Adaptive high quality and Aptx Adaptive Low latency.

As for the SoundSwap mode, subjectively we did notice a lip error sync when using the feature. We did run some audio latency measurements using our latest Soundbar Latency TB 1.3 update and we measured about ~35ms of additional latency, depending on the audio format, from the base value obtained on the Sonos Arc. We also noticed that the latency would additionally increase between 10ms to 40ms when turning on Head Tracking and Spatial Audio. Keep in mind that this is not AV Syn-Error but just Audio Latency.

Hello.

You mentioned audio delay when using soundswap with an Arc. Could you please also test it with the new Arc Ultra to see if this has at all improved there?

You should also know that there is a known issue with audio delay on the Xbox One X when using Atmos over HDMI. This will also add to the delay when using soundswap. The reference should be 7.1 on Xbox or Atmos on PS5.

Dec 17, 2024 01:13 AM By Felix123FFM

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Hello. You mentioned audio delay when using soundswap with an Arc. Could you please also test it with the new Arc Ultra to see if this has at all improved there? You should also know that there is a known issue with audio delay on the Xbox One X when using Atmos over HDMI. This will also add to the delay when using soundswap. The reference should be 7.1 on Xbox or Atmos on PS5.

Hello Felix123FFM,

We will look into the Sound Swap performance, and the audio delay issue on the Xbox One X for the Sonos Ace and update the review if needed.