Sonos’ new headphones can finally handover audio to your Sonos speakers

Quick Summary

Sonos has revealed the Ace Ultra, its new top-tier headphones, complete with the brand's Headphone Engine 2 – which sees the new headphones act like a Sonos speaker within the system, enabling audio handover to other Sonos products.

The Sonos Ace Ultra is built from the ground up, with a new set of 40mm drivers, more battery life than before, additional microphones for improved call quality and active noise-cancelling (ANC) to boot.

Sonos has gone all-out this week with major new reveals, adding its second-ever headphone product, the Ace Ultra, to its incoming future line-up.

That follows the all-new Sonos Beam Ultra soundbar, which brings upfiring channels to the mid-size soundbar range for the first time, improving its immersive Dolby Atmos credentials.

While the Sonos Ace Ultra may look similar to the original Sonos Ace over-ears, this newer product has been "built from the ground up" and uses an all-new 40mm driver within each earcup.

Audio handover

Crucially, however, the Ace Ultra introduces what Sonos calls its 'Headphone Engine 2', enabling the Ultra to handover audio to your other Sonos speakers.

As the Ace Ultra can act as a full-scale node in Sonos' platform, you can link them to your system in myriad ways.

This expands beyond the established TV Audio Swap feature, where the headphones can wirelessly receive three-dimensional audio from a connected Sonos soundbar.

Note, however, that as the Headphone Engine 2 feature requires specific hardware to operate, this handover feature will not be available on the original Sonos Ace product – as it doesn't have the necessary chip to operate this way.

New and improved ANC

Elsewhere, the Ace Ultra also up their active noise-cancelling (ANC) game, thanks to a new microphone arrangement – with 10 in total, marking two additional ones over the original Ace product.

An Adaptive EQ feature is designed to measure how well the earcups are sat on your head, adjusting the ANC profile accordingly based on the seal – and that'll act as a big benefit for glasses wearers.

Battery life has also been considerably improved, offering 35 hours per charge with ANC active. That's a far superior claim to the 24 hours achievable with the original Ace. There's also boost charging, said to offer up to 3 hours of use from just 3 minutes at the plug.

While the wireless format is the Ace Ultra's forte, these over-ears can also be used wired via the USB-C port. That offers Hi-Res listening up to 16-bit/48kHz for those who can serve it the correct audio formats.

Upgraded design

It's not only the drivers within that are new. Sonos has further improved the ergonomics, with the earcups' connections even more adaptable and with improved rotation

Making the most comfortable headphones even better was surely no small order, but Sonos looks to have pulled out all the stops in the Ace Ultra.

How much will a pair set you back? You can pre-order right now for the 29 September on-sale date, with retail prices fixed at £399 / $449 / AU$699 / €449.

Mike is T3's Tech Editor. He's been writing about consumer technology for 15 years and his beat covers phones – of which he's seen hundreds of handsets over the years – laptops, gaming, TV & audio, and more. There's little consumer tech he's not had a hand at trying, and with extensive commissioning and editing experience, he knows the industry inside out. As the former Reviews Editor at Pocket-lint for 10 years where he furthered his knowledge and expertise, whilst writing about literally thousands of products, he's also provided work for publications such as Wired, The Guardian, Metro, and more.