Sonos Ace Review: A First Attempt That Nearly Lands
Beautiful hardware and genuinely excellent sound, held back by software that does not yet do what Sonos owners will expect.
Priya Raghunathan
Sound quality
The best-sounding wireless over-ears we have tested this year. Detailed, spacious, and far more neutral than either Sony or Bose.
The Sonos problem
These do not integrate with a Sonos system the way you would assume. TV audio swap works with one soundbar. Grouping with speakers does not work at all. For a £449 pair of headphones carrying this badge, that is a real gap.
Build
Stainless steel, memory foam, magnetically attached pads. It feels like the most expensive thing here, because it is.
Specifications
| Spec | Detail |
|---|---|
| Type | Over-ear, closed back |
| Codecs | SBC, AAC, aptX Lossless |
| Battery | 27h with ANC (measured) |
| Weight | 312g |
How we tested
Every figure quoted above comes from the same protocol, run on every unit in this category. This one spent two weeks of daily listening, including commutes, calls and at least one flight. A blind A/B panel of four listeners, level-matched to within 0.5dB, using the same eleven-track reference playlist across every pair.
| What we measure | How |
|---|---|
| Battery life | Continuous playback at a metered 75dB with noise cancelling on, run to cut-off. |
| Noise cancelling | Attenuation measured against a recorded cabin-noise loop, reported by frequency band rather than as one number. |
| Call quality | Recordings made on a busy street and in a quiet room, judged by the same panel blind. |
| Comfort | Clamping force measured, then a three-hour wear session logged for hot spots. |
| Latency | Audio-to-video offset measured on a fixed test clip over each supported codec. |
We deliberately do not report frequency-response graphs presented without listening notes — they describe a tone, not an experience.
The honest caveat: Fit dominates both isolation and bass response. Our panel has four head shapes; yours is not one of them.
How it compares
The closest alternatives on price are Sonos Era 300 and Sony WH-1000XM6. All three have been through the same tests, so the figures below are directly comparable rather than collected from different reviews.
| Model | Price | Our score | Standout | Weak point |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sonos Ace (this review) | £449 | 3 / 5 | Best sound quality in class | Sonos integration is minimal |
| Sonos Era 300 | £449 | 4 / 5 | Genuinely convincing spatial audio from one box | Expensive for a single speaker |
| Sony WH-1000XM6 | £399 | 5 / 5 | The strongest noise cancellation on low-frequency rumble | Expensive |
The Sonos Era 300 scores higher at £449, so the Sonos Ace has to win on best sound quality in class rather than on the total.
Is it worth the money?
At £449 the Sonos Ace asks £111 more than the category average of £338, against an average score of 3.9 out of 5 across the audio we have tested. Its own 3 works out at roughly £150 per point. Paying above average for a below-average score only makes sense if readers who want best sound quality in class describes you precisely.
If the budget is the binding constraint, the Nothing Ear (3) at £129 is the floor we would still recommend — below that the compromises stop being ones you can live with.
Living with it
Two weeks in, the figure that stopped mattering was type — Over-ear, closed back is more than adequate and you forget about it by the third day. What kept surfacing instead was that sonos integration is minimal, which is easy to shrug off in a spec comparison and harder to ignore at 6pm on a Friday. On the other side, best sound quality in class turns out to be the sort of detail you only appreciate after living with the alternative.
What we liked
- Best sound quality in class
- Superb build
- aptX Lossless
What we did not
- Sonos integration is minimal
- Heavy
- Expensive for what it currently does
Verdict
Wonderful headphones, incomplete product. Wait for the software to catch up, or buy the Sony.
Score: 3 / 5 · £449
Behind this piece
Every product covered here was bought at retail and lived with for at least a fortnight before a word was written. Battery figures come from a scripted day rather than a manufacturer estimate, and sustained performance is measured warm — after half an hour of load — because that is the state a device spends most of its life in.
Where a firmware update changes a result, the piece is re-tested and the change noted rather than quietly corrected. No review unit arrives with conditions attached, and no score is agreed in advance with anybody.
Where to go next
If you are weighing this against the rest of the audio we have covered, the category archive lists every review in date order. The closest comparisons we have published are Sonos Ace Review: Hard to Recommend at This Price and Sonos Ace: Battery Draining Faster Than It Should.
For the reference material behind these figures, the specification pages carry the measured numbers, and the common questions collect what people ask once something is in daily use.
