For years it was a serious flex to say you had Sonos gear running in your home. Over time the equipment became more affordable and, expanding offerings meant the name became more mainstream. Now, the Sonos Ace has been announced signalling that the company is ready to take the next step in audio delivery.
The key features include high-fidelity, lossless and spatial audio, Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and Aware Mode and up to 30 hours of talk or playback time. These are absolutely a premium, in fact, luxury listening item and the $699.00 price tag supports that placing them in the same realm as Bose, Sony and Sennheiser consumer audio.
At the release event, Patrick Spence, CEO of Sonos, said:
“Sonos Ace leverages everything we’ve learned over two decades as an audio leader to bring stunning sound, sleek design and long-standing comfort to one of the largest and most popular audio categories worldwide.”
The Sonos Ace features TrueCinema, Dolby Atmos and lossless spatial Audio to give you the best experience possible. As someone with a significant music collection, I’m very excited to see how the Ace performs. Looking at some of the other specs however, this could be a driver for me to get one of the Arc soundbars. The two combine to provide the capability to instantly switch between the soundbar and headphone audio, giving you continued great listening and your family the gift of a quiet home.
The Sonos Ace take the audio much further than your living room though. With a nice little carry case included to protect your investment, great — as earlier mentioned — battery life and quick charging (3 mins charging will give you about 3 hours of playback) these are headphones intended for everyday use.
It’s in this daily use that other features come into play taking the user experience to the next level. Features like the noise cancelling being able to change to aware mode in the office or, when you need to be aware of your surroundings. Wear detection that automatically pauses and resumes playback when you take the headphones off, easy to use controls and an adjustable EQ to customise the audio to your preference.
Sonos has considered comfort in the design too, with plenty of cushioning around the headband and ear cups; if you’re like me, you could conceivably put them on in the morning and take them off at the end of the day without needing to take them off in the meantime.
The Sonos Ace is available in soft white or black from June 5th at AU$699.00 through Sonos online and the usual retail channels.
