The Sonos Ace Ultra headphones have arrived, The review is done on them and I think they are very good. They’re an improvement over the original Ace, and it’s arguable that Sonos should have ditched the headphones.
But who manages to get things right first? Sonos has gone back to basics, and instead of redoing the headphone, it seems they’ve decided to improve in the areas where it was most needed, but not mess with the things that worked the first time.
So now the Ace Ultra is a much more all-encompassing, better-designed and more compelling pair of wireless headphones, competitive with the best on the market. Before the announcement of the headphones, when rumors swirled about what was to come, I felt that Sonos needed to dig deeper into its identity – embrace what Sonos is, Sonos.
The only area where reviewers felt the headphones failed was in the connectivity department; they didn’t notice the potential the Sonos ecosystem. With Headphone Linking, that’s now a reality, and it’s a pretty impressive piece of technology that sets Sonos apart from the competition and becomes the Ace Ultra’s unique selling point.
It’s some kind of magic
During IFA 26, Sonos set up an area for product previews ahead of the announcement, and I was invited to listen to demonstrations and demos of the Sonos Ace Ultra and Beam Ultra. As you probably know, Sonos has anticipated its future with the introduction of the Sonos27 AI platform, and the possibilities for customization and personalization within the system are vast.
But I think we all wanted to see headphone pairing, and it might seem nebulous at first. After all, who would care so much if you switched the music from speakers to headphones?
You can simply call up the app on your device and do it yourself, but if there’s one (or two) advantages to AI, it’s automation and efficiency. When I want to do something, I don’t want to go through multiple steps – keeping it simple means less confusion and probably less frustration. I want ease of use and accessibility and not having to end up going online and looking for a solution to what I’m doing wrong.
You can achieve this by connecting your headphones. It’s a simple tool for extracting music from one place to another, and it can work very well. I played music on one of the speakers, transferred it to the headphones, moved to another room, and then routed the music to the speaker in that room. This is very easy by pressing the Content button.
The versatility of the system, where I can start playing music on a speaker or soundbar, then if I feel like it, send it to the headphones and vice versa for private listening, and the flexibility it offers is a boon for those who want to spend some time on their own.
However, you’ll notice that I said it “works very well” but not all the time.
It’s still in early access
You turn on the headset pairing; this is not a feature that we provide out of the box. It’s part of Sonos’ Early Access program, which might indicate it’s still in beta/alpha, and not something the public can enjoy without reservation.
I found it a bit slow to recognize nearby speakers and where to send the sound, but I found it to be faster; the system seemed to understand where the speakers were, so it recognized and sent the sound faster. But of course it’s not perfect.
In other cases, he was confused about what to do; the headset won’t get sound after several tries before it suddenly works. Something I mentioned in my review is that if you have two speakers close together, you might send the speaker you didn’t intend to. I went into a room playing music, pressed the Content button, but accidentally heard the sound of the Beam Ultra. Oops.
It’s also a Wi-Fi-enabled system, so don’t think that if you’ve got headphones on, you’ll be able to take sound from the speaker and happily leave the house with your tunes playing in your head. I tried walking into the garden and found that the signal drops out quickly because I’m using Wi-Fi and it’s all on a mesh network created by Sonos.
There is potential
So while it’s not quite ready for its time in the spotlight, Headphone Linking offers an interesting perspective on what’s to come next. I don’t know where it could lead – maybe I can use Sonos Voice to talk into the headphones and start a routine somewhere in the house if it’s all connected to a smart system, but there’s definitely potential in connecting devices.
So far I’ve got TV/Audio Swap, which works very well, and TrueCinema, which is surprisingly effective – there are times when I wonder if there’s any sound coming from the soundbar, the effect seems so spacious. The implementation of head tracking is also a nice feature, and it’s a feature that other headphones have tried but haven’t put together as well as the Sonos.
With the Headphone Link function, Sonos has got an ace. We’ll see how it plays out as the feature and the Sonos ecosystem evolves, but right now the future looks very interesting.
