Headphones
Sonos Ace, the California brand's long-awaited debut in headphones
A headphone with a unique spatial audio feature that may well represent a technological leapfrog.
The Californian brand Sonos gave us the opportunity to meet their new Sonos Ace headphones last week in New York City, the same that come hand in hand with a new spatial audio technology that may well represent a leapfrog within the category.
First impressions of the Sonos Ace
The first thing you notice about these over-ear headphones is their design, which matches the presence of the brand’s devices with a subtle tattoo of the Sonos logo on one of the sides.
They sync with our mobile devices (and even home systems) through the application via Bluetooth.
The things that stand out most are its spatial audio and lossless, also includes active noise cancellation (ANC), ambient mode, and home theater experience, which we will detail later.
These will be available on June 5th in black and soft white at a price of 449 dollars.
TrueCinema
This section is undoubtedly the most surprising, as it is a new Sonos patent that allows you to extend the movie theater experience to your headphones. This mimics having your own private theater, so you can enjoy the home theater experience with all the trimmings and surround sound individually, without disturbing anyone at home.
How does TrueCinema work?
With the touch of a button on the app, you can instantly route TV audio from a compatible Sonos soundbar to the headphones. At launch, it will only be available with the Arc model, but engineers have not ruled out compatibility with other models at a later date.
The interesting thing about this patent is that Dolby Atmos spatial audio is perfectly simulated directly wirelessly, providing a hyper-realistic sense of surround audio from all directions, adding dynamic head tracking that simulates a center (where the bar is located) even as you move.
This Sonos technology creates an accurate map of your room and virtually creates a full surround sound system for a realistic audio experience that makes you forget you’re even wearing headphones.
During the demo we tried, it really seemed something amazing, as it reacted perfectly, and the best thing is that according to their engineers, this technology will be compatible with DTS, Dolby Digital or any other surround audio technology, as long as the source is connected directly to the bar.
Other Sonos Ace features
One of the things we liked most was that its replaceable memory foam ear pads covered in vegan leather are magnetic, allowing for deeper cleaning, and the battery promises up to 30 hours of use. It also has a built-in fast charge, so with just 3 minutes of charging we can get up to 3 hours of use.
Another aspect we liked about its design is that its controls have tactile buttons of good size that allow you to control them easily, especially the volume.
A subtle but appreciated detail is that its case has a sort of cable storage box that is also magnetic to prevent you from losing it, and its flat and foldable design fits perfectly into this.
It is a fact that the arrival of the first Sonos headphones will cause a stir, notwithstanding the fact that its TrueCinema technology has enormous potential in the world of video games.