Sonos Ace Headphones: You Had One Job!

all right so the world of high-end noise

cancelling headphones has kind of

settled over the last few years you know

you've got the Sony's you've got the

Bose there's the airpods Max and then

kind of the rest but now player four has

entered the game Sonos so you've

probably heard of Sonos they've been

making these premium Soundbars for years

that's been their most popular product

and everyone just kind of figured they

would eventually get into headphones it

was just a matter of when and how much

cuz that's the thing about Sonos

speakers is they are premium they're

very expensive and so now here it's

obviously interesting enough that it's a

new player but they are also now

expensive

$450 Bluetooth noise cancelling

headphones so at that price the question

is are they actually worth getting so

I've been using the Sonos Ace headphones

for more than a month now I've edited

videos with them I've listened to a lot

of music I've gone on flights and turns

out they're really solid and they do

have some really nice features but there

are also definitely some downsides and

there's really only a small group of

people that I would actually recommend

these two but let me just start with the

basics right so these are the headphones

they are mostly made of plastic and that

is totally normal in this price range

because that makes them super

lightweight and comfortable and that is

one of these headphones best assets for

sure so they're really flexible for

different head sizes and shapes and the

top headband is really soft the ear cups

are also removable and they snap on and

off with magnets and they're also really

soft so ideally you can replace these

ear cups when they get old and by the

way I like that they have a different

color mesh for the right and left Sid so

you can tell at a glance which one is

which also same with the black colored

version that's kind of a neat touch the

shape of these cups is normal and

they're so soft but I feel like the one

thing I want is for these ear cups to be

a bit more deep I mean when they are on

my ears they're fine but they're just a

little bit shallow and my ears like

touching the inside of it so that's

maybe my only fit complaint but

everything else about the way they like

wear is great I think aesthetically they

look like a combo between the Sony's and

the Microsoft Surface headphones I don't

know if you remember those but they had

that matte off-white look and then with

the frictionless stainless steel bands

that airpods Max have that kind of

completes the look overall pretty simple

though not too much branding not too

many crazy accent Pieces Just good

looking and Good Feeling headphones here

is where I start to have complaints

though so this is the case that it comes

with pretty simple design it's like this

recycled material and it's got a

different color inside versus outside

but this zipper right here is so annoy

it's just maybe nitpicking but how often

it gets snagged on the way opening or

closing it is very annoying so I wish it

was either thicker or just smoother and

then the headphones do not fold down at

all to fit inside and matter of fact if

you have them extended they still don't

fit inside the case so you have to fully

collapse them and then just place them

in there so they don't they don't really

pack down very small unfort fortunately

there is also a little floating pouch

thing here in the middle of the case for

cables that like magnetizes in which is

pretty clever aside from that though for

as premium as these headphones are I

just feel like the case doesn't really

match up for

$450 I just got to be honest I wish that

the case was better but then buttons

good to see real buttons so on the left

ear cup there's just one button that's a

real power button so you hold that for 3

seconds to turn it on or off or hold 7

Seconds to pair then on the right side

is a button and a switch so the button

is basically to switch between noise

cancellation and transparency mode then

up top is this kind of a rocker switch

slash button it's called the content key

because it controls all your media but

you slide it up or down to change volume

and then you can press to play pause or

double press to go forward so basically

that rocker controls everything I think

in general Sonos got most of the

fundamentals right with these headphones

as far as design goes thankfully like

nothing critically wrong with them

they're pretty minimal it's got the

smooth stepless adjustment these are

some of the lightest softest especially

uh headphones I've ever worn I think

with deeper ear cups they're probably an

A+ they have a rock solid 40 plus hour

battery life they have multi-point

Bluetooth connectivity so you can

connect them to two different Bluetooth

devices at once so we might as well just

get right into how they sound so these

are closed back active noise

cancellation OV ear headphones they have

custom 40mm drivers and eight

microphones positioned all the way

around for noise cancellation and the

pass through mode I do think these

headphones sound good now they are not

mind-blowing World beating or anything

crazy like that they are still

constrained by physics and Bluetooth

codex but they have a nice full sound

with great bass all the way through

strong Highs at first I thought they

sounded a little muddier than airpods

Max but you can brighten them right up

by jumping in the EQ settings in the

extremely neutered Sonos app and that's

where you can mess with just a couple

other very basic things like onhe head

detection and head tracking surround

sound but like yeah look the EQ is liter

just a Bas slider and a trouble slider

so I hope they add to this at some point

but at least you can change that the

most impressive thing really about their

sound I think is the noise cancellation

it is really really good it basically

erases any sort of white noise air

conditioning droning road noise like

they are incredible for airplanes and

they can absorb even some of the more

sudden noise changes as well I think

this is A+ noise cancellation in my book

and then to my surprise they also have

some of the best transparency mod I've

heard in anything that's not airpods

really natural sounding for having

regular conversations with your

headphones on you can hear the

environment around you they call it

aware mode this is also great so I've

been saying all these nice things they

clearly they sound good they look good

they have all these good features good

noise cancellation they're very

comfortable so what's with the title so

here's the thing the reason everyone was

waiting for Sonos to do headphones is

because Sonos already makes these

awesome speakers they have a reputation

with these Internet connected speaker

systems that are a hit like I have a

Sonos Arc at home and it sounds great

it's awesome I think aside from what

they did to the app they're fantastic

you connect to various music/ media

sources and you can stream them to the

speaker systems and high quality you can

also obviously connect them to your TV

they're great and so naturally I think

we'd all like to have a new pair of

Sonos headphones that can join right in

the ecosystem and connect in the Sonos

app to be another one of our of Sonos

speakers and have all the same

functionality Unfortunately they can't

these are not Wi-Fi connected headphones

they're just regular they're Bluetooth

headphones so what you can do is when

you're home you can connect the

headphones straight to the speakers and

then you can quickly swap between the

ark speaker and the headphones with a

single tap of the content button so when