The Sonos Ace wireless over-ear headphones have been a huge hit with reviewers and consumers alike since they came out 2 years ago. Right now Amazon is having one of those inexplicable deals on the Sonos Ace, which come in 2 colors. The white model is full-priced at $399, but the black Ace headphones are $100 less for some reason — just $299 while this deal lasts.
The 2 versions of the Sonos Ace headphones are identical in every way except for the color and, now, the price. The $299 price on the black phones is only $20 above the all-time low price for Sonos’s first foray into the world of wireless headphones. Sonos lived on its long history of high-end home theater setups and speakers, and the Ace headphones only enhance the company’s reputation for premium audio.
Top Shelf Only
The Ace headphones come with active noise cancellation, Dolby Atmos spatial audio with dynamic head tracking, and the kind of premium materials — plush memory foam, soft vegan leather — that show they weren’t designed for a budget shelf. Where the Ace gets genuinely interesting is in how it plays with the rest of the Sonos ecosystem: If you own a Sonos Arc Ultra, Arc, Beam, or Ray soundbar, you can instantly swap TV audio from the bar to your headphones when you don’t want the whole room to hear what you’re watching.
Unlike most competing models that only offer Lossless audio in hardwired form, the Sonos Ace streams Lossless over Bluetooth in addition to USB-C. The battery runs for up to 30 hours with noise cancellation on — a number that covers most travel itineraries. Three minutes of rapid charge gives you three more hours of playback, so a quick top-up while you’re getting dressed isn’t a wasted gesture.
Game-Changing Deal
At the full $399 price the Sonos Ace locks horns with a rugged set of rivals like Sony’s XM5 and the Bose QuietComfort Ultra, which both have longer market track records for wireless headphones. But at $299 at Amazon, the Sonos Ace brings comparable quality and specs at a price point where much of the competition is just comparable slapping its logo on a generic driver stack. The spatial audio implementation — Dolby Atmos with dynamic head tracking that adjusts as you move — is the kind of feature that used to live exclusively in over-ear cans costing north of $400.
If you’re already in the Sonos ecosystem with your home audio, this is close to a no-brainer: the TV Audio Swap feature alone is worth the upgrade conversation. If you’re not, you’re still getting a well-built pair of noise-cancelling headphones from a company that takes audio seriously — just remember to click on the black headphones for that difference-making $100 off.
