GoKawiilA new pair of Ultra headphones has arrived, and it’s not from Bose. The Sonos Ace Ultra is a follow-up to its Ace premium noise-canceling headphones. The $449 Sonos Ace Ultra is equipped with new Sonos-designed 40-millimeter drivers and upgraded adaptive noise canceling. Sonos says they’re also its first headphones built on its Headphone Engine 2, which lets you link the Ace Ultra directly to your Sonos system with a press of a button, and unlink it with another press.
Available for preorder today and shipping on Sept. 29, the Ace Ultra headphones come in black, soft white, agave or sand colors. They look similar to their predecessors, but Sonos says they have new rebound foam ear cushions that better passively reduce ambient noise — and hopefully they’re more comfortable as well.
Aside from the new drivers, one of the key upgrades is the new 10-microphone array, with five in each earcup. The previous model has eight microphones. That should help not only with noise-canceling performance but voice-calling performance as well.
Weighing in at 322 grams or 10 grams more than the Ace, the Ace Ultra is equipped with Bluetooth 6.0 and an upgraded 5-series Qualcomm chip that supports the SBC, AAC and aptX Adaptive Lossless audio codecs (though the latter is supported by only a relatively small number of phones). Spatial audio and USB-C audio are also on board.
As for battery life, it’s rated at 35 hours with noise canceling on at moderate volume levels. That’s an improvement over the Ace’s 30 hours.
The Sonos Ace Ultra ships on Sept. 29. Sonos
Headphone Engine 2 features redesigned Wi-Fi hardware
The Ace was designed to link up with Sonos soundbars so you could have a personal cinema experience on the headphones and not disturb others in your household. The Ace Ultra’s linking ability is more sophisticated, as Sonos says the Headphone Engine 2 includes redesigned Wi-Fi hardware and secure credential storage that allow the headphone to “connect directly to and participate in the Sonos system.” That means whatever you have playing on your Sonos system will transfer over to the headphones with a press of a button. Another press then returns the audio to your speakers.
The original Ace headphones arrived in June 2024, shortly after Sonos’ problematic redesign of its app, which left off some features and was buggy, angering users. Like some other reviewers, I initially had some trouble linking the Ace headphones with my Sonos Arc soundbar. Though Sonos did have to work out some kinks, I was generally impressed with its first headphones, which featured excellent sound and good noise canceling.
With a couple of years of development behind it, I suspect the Ace Ultra will integrate more smoothly with Sonos systems. But I’ll update this post with some hands-on impressions after spending some time with the new headphones at Sonos’ launch event in New York. Along with the new headphones, Sonos also announced the new Beam Ultra Soundbar ($699) and Sonos 27, the latest version of the audio operating system. The Sonos Beam Ultra is also available for preorder today and ships on Sept. 29.