Sonos thinks it's ready to take on Bose, Sony, Apple, and other competitors with its first-ever pair of wireless headphones. The noise-canceling Sonos Ace have a premium design, impressive comfort, and a feature called TV Audio Swap that lets you privately listen to your TV shows and movies with the press of a button — as long as you also own a Sonos soundbar.
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00:00 Hey, hey, it's Chris Walsh with The Verge, and I just got back from seeing the new Sonos Ace
00:04 headphones. They've been rumored for years now, and they're coming out soon. Sonos is getting
00:09 into the ring with Apple, Bose, Sony, and other headphone makers with its first ever pair of
00:15 noise-canceling wireless headphones. When you're outside the house, they're just a nice pair of
00:19 music headphones. And when you're home, they've got some really neat home theater features. So
00:24 let's get into all of it. Okay, right off the bat, it's hard not to be impressed by this design.
00:30 The Ace, Aces, whatever you want to call them, they feel like headphones from a company that's
00:35 been doing this for a very long time. In your hands and on your head, there's nothing about
00:40 them that feels like a Gen 1 product. They're way lighter than the AirPods Max, but still give off a
00:45 premium vibe thanks to polished metal sliders, vegan leather padding, and memory foam in the
00:51 cushions and headband. Those ear pads are magnetic and easily removable. Where have I seen that
00:56 before? And the inside of each ear pad is a different color, so you can tell which side is
01:03 which. And even if you're not paying attention, those magnets don't let you mix them up. Even the
01:08 fabric carrying case is pretty snazzy, and it stays put using, you guessed it, magnets. All of these
01:15 small touches go to show how much thought has gone into the Sonos Ace headphones. Sonos has chosen
01:20 to go with all physical controls, so there are no tap gestures or sliding motions to worry about.
01:25 The stainless steel rocker is called the content key. You can move it up and down to adjust volume,
01:30 push in to play or pause, or hold it down to transfer TV audio from a Sonos soundbar
01:35 to the headphones for private listening with spatial audio surround sound. But first,
01:40 let's cover what these are like as music headphones. Now, despite this being its first time
01:44 out, Sonos claims to have achieved world-class noise cancellation. Is that on par with Bose
01:50 or Sony? If so, that'd be quite something. These headphones also have a transparency mode that
01:55 sounded nice and natural during my brief demo session. Battery life is a decent 30 hours,
02:00 and for owners of newer Android phones, Sonos also supports aptX Adaptive for higher quality
02:06 Bluetooth audio. iPhone owners get the usual AAC and SBC codecs, so there's no lossless audio over
02:12 Wi-Fi or anything really unique about how Sonos handles music there. But that all changes the
02:17 minute you use the Sonos Ace with any of the company's soundbars. This is where the headphones
02:22 feel the most Sonos-y. You hold down the content key for a second or two and bam, the audio from
02:28 your soundbar instantly gets transferred over to the headphones. If you're watching a Dolby Atmos
02:33 movie, you'll get full spatial audio surround sound with head tracking. Sonos also upmixes
02:38 stereo content so that it works with spatial audio. But if you want just plain old stereo sound,
02:43 you can turn all those features off. There's also something called True Cinema, kind of like
02:48 Trueplay, that analyzes the room and where you're sitting. It uses the soundbar and mics inside the
02:53 actual headphones to optimize spatial audio and make it feel like there's really a surround sound
02:58 system of speakers all around you. The head tracking on Ace headphones is subtle, and that's
03:03 by design. Sonos sound guru Giles Martin told me that if it was too gimmicky or obvious, people
03:10 would just turn it off. And then what's the point of the feature in the first place? That home
03:14 theater handoff to the headphones all happens over Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth, which is interesting.
03:20 And Sonos says any latency shouldn't be perceptible to most people. Private listening from TV to
03:26 headphones is nothing new. You can do it with AirPods and an Apple TV. Many Roku devices support
03:31 it. And any number of Google TVs let you pair up Bluetooth headphones. You get the idea. But this
03:37 is a convenience that people have grown to really love. And Sonos seems confident that's taking that
03:41 the next level and making the experience all the more immersive. So that's the Sonos Ace in a
03:47 nutshell. The design is really something, like I said, but there's so much more testing I have to
03:53 do to see how well Sonos' first ever headphones compare to some truly heavyweight competition.
03:58 With demand for its speakers and soundbars slowing down lately, this is a huge new product for the
04:03 company. $450 is a lot of money, so stay tuned to The Verge for a full review coming closer to that
04:10 June 5th release date. It feels like there have been rumors of Sonos headphones for a long time,
04:15 and they're finally almost here. So I'm curious for your thoughts on the design,
04:19 the features, and that price. Drop a comment below and thanks so much for watching.