Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “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 they’re connected, you can swap back and forth between watching TV with the speakers and with the headphones pretty seamlessly, but the headphones themselves are not actually Wi-Fi enabled like they’re not going to pull anything from any streaming services directly to the headphones. Like some Sonos speaker systems might so that’s the bummer and honestly it’s I think it’s probably a battery issue why they aren’t able to pull it off on these, and this all might not even be a big deal to almost anyone, because, basically, no other pair of Headphones has that ability yet anyway, but for a new 450 $ 50 pair of Sonos, headphones kind of thought, maybe they’d be able to pull it off, but they didn’t, which means they kind of to me now feel like almost an overpriced version of the Sony’s. That already exist, and I’m talking about the marvs, not even the mark 5S, which kind of felt like almost a little bit of a pointless upgrade. Now I actually recently made an upgrade that I was curious if it would actually make a noticeable difference to me or not. I’Ve been using the eight sleep pod 3 for a couple years now and I recently upgraded to the Pod 4 and turns out it’s actually pretty sick. So the eight sleep it was already really good at sleep tracking, with all the sensors and the heart rate monitors and all that fun stuff, but they’ redesign the tech inside it, making it more comfortable. It’S also now twice as powerful for cooling and 40 % quieter, but maybe my favorite update is there’s a little tap area on the side, so you can silence or snooze the vibration alarm just by reaching over and tapping right here, which is pretty sick, but the Extra cooling, I think, is actually making a difference to me.
I think a normal good night of sleep for me, I’m getting like high 80 or low 90s as a sleep score, which I thought was pretty great and then lately I’ve gotten a couple hundreds which I’d never used to get. But now I feel like I’m getting a 100 like once a week which is unheard of for me. They said the tech behind the Pod 4 has been clinically validated to increase sleep time by up to an hour every night and increase deep sleep by up to 2 and 1/2 hours a month and reduce wakeup Time by 3 hours a month. All these are little gains that really just add up, and, unlike the Sonos app, the eight sleep app is really good and consistent. Ly is getting better over time and then also with the Pod 4 ultra. They made this insane adjustable base that can go underneath your mattress, so it can actually adjust it to different sleeping positions and then you can turn on automatic, snore detection. So if it detects snoring it like gently lifts your head up a few degrees to stop it. For you, so if you want to check one out I’ll leave a link below it’s 8sleep.com MKBHD and then, if you use code MKBHD, you get $ 350 off a pod 4 ultra or 200 bucks off a pod 4 you’re welcome.
So, at the end of the day, let’s say you’re in the market for some high-end noise cancelling headphones right. Obviously there are some choices. These feel, like they’re, a direct competitor to airpods Max most people who have an iPhone and iPad or a Mac and a bunch of stuff in the ecosystem, who still want that seamless experience will probably still go with airpods Max, even though they’re more expensive. But what I will say is those are heavier and I probably wouldn’t buy those right now.
I think there’s got to be a new version of those like right around the corner, just just as a PSA, but then there’s the Bose and the Sony’s that I mentioned earlier, which are essentially 90 % of the same headphones. That have a lot of the same benefits but $ 1 to $ 200 cheaper. So the only way that I feel like I can shoehorn in recommending this pair of Sonos headphones is, I guess one if you just really love the brand and you know, got the money and you don’t care. Fine two is, if you want the best transparency mode that isn’t airpods.
That’S these, but then three is, if you switch between watching TV with your speakers and your headphones, particularly often like I’m not personally that person, but the one use case. I feel, like I hear all the time is like people who live together, but one of them wants to watch TV while the other doesn’t wake up or doesn’t hear or something like that. So if you’re, that person and you already have or about to get the Sonos Arc Soundbar, then in that case, these are a great pair with that just because of that quick seamless, switch feature, but that’s kind of it. Otherwise, they’re just a normal, solid pair of bluetooth, headphones, so I’ll leave links to all my other headphone reviews below check them out get subscribed. If you haven’t already thanks for watching and I’ll catch, you guys in the next one peace.
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