Sonos Ace Ultra review

Sonos’ first foray into premium wireless headphones left us feeling cold. Sonos was already riding high thanks to the success of its Era 100 and Era 300 wireless speakers and a raft of Award-winning soundbars, but translating those sonic successes to the mediocre-sounding Sonos Ace headphones in 2024 proved a bridge too far, to our ears at least.

As we wrote at the time, the “Ace's safe sound is put to the sword by several rival headphones that are more exciting, more detailed, dynamic and expressive across the board. Both their ANC and call quality can be bettered, too”.

These are the issues that the Ace’s follow-up, the new Ace Ultra, must rectify if Sonos is to become a major player in consumer audio’s most contested arena. Sonos has pledged “rich, detailed audio” from the Ace Ultra, aiming to make up ground against a plethora of premium wireless alternatives, all backed by seamless integration within the expanded Sonos ecosystem.

A tempting proposition for Sonos lovers, but has the brand learned its lessons from the original Ace?

Price

Sonos’ sophomore over-ears will set you back £399 / $449 / AU$699 at launch, putting them up against two strong contenders at this price: the Award-winning Sony WH-1000XM6 (£400 / $450 / AU$699) and the excellent five-star Sennheiser HDB 630 (£400 / $500 / AU$1000).

The original Ace launched at £449 / $449 / AU$699, but their price has since dropped to a more modest £299 / $299 / AU$449. To be clear, Sonos says it will keep the Ace on sale alongside the new step-up model, rather than pitching the Ace Ultra as a direct replacement.

Build & comfort

While we weren’t necessarily that keen on how the original Sonos Ace sounded, we found it hard to fault their design, praising the cans’ minimalist aesthetic, comfortable fit and premium feel.

Happily, those qualities have translated across to the new Ace Ultra. Sonos’ second effort hasn’t deviated much from the original over-ear’s clean, understated design language, with the Ace Ultra sporting a pair of clean, smooth plastic earcups adorned with a shining Sonos logo and complemented by exposed metal arms.

The minimalist aesthetic won’t suit all tastes, but in terms of how the headphones actually feel, it’s hard to complain. The plastic is solid and durable, the metal hinges shine with a polished presence, and the buttons and toggles are responsive and reasonably tactile during operation.

That said, we would ideally like the Ace Ultra to fold away as the Sony WH-1000XM6 do, rather than simply having the earcups swivel horizontally on their hinges, but that won’t be a dealbreaker for most.

Elsewhere, the Ace Ultras’ soft ear cushions and padded adjustable headband make them a pleasure to live with. The earpads have been upgraded for the Ace Ultra, with the new ‘Rebound’ memory foam cushions, designed not only to improve comfort levels but aid passive noise reduction – we found they offer a plusher, more forgiving fit.

They’re capable of keeping their cool, too, and even as wearing sessions turn from minutes to hours, the Sonos over-ears resist the urge to heat our ears and turn our listening from serene to sweat-inducing.

As before, the ear pads attach magnetically, meaning you can remove them easily and buy replacements from the Sonos store for around £40 / $40 if they begin to wear out over time. You can also replace the headphones’ battery yourself, adding to the headphones’ impressive sustainability credentials.

How about controls? Where the likes of the Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless and Sony WH-1000XM6 have implemented predominantly haptic on-unit systems, Sonos has stuck to its guns and gone for tactile buttons on the side of each of the Ace Ultras’ earcups.

A physical toggle for quickly adjusting your noise-cancelling mode is located at the base of the right earcup, while a ‘content key’ lets you control volume, pause music, and even answer calls by either sliding the toggle up and down or pressing down in the centre. In terms of its basic ergonomics, it’s a simple toggle to use, and our only issue would be that it can sometimes force your hand into a slightly odd position when performing certain commands.

While the Ace Ultra might look similar to the original Ace on the outside, scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find a fresh set of Sonos-designed 40mm dynamic drive units. The new drivers incorporate a dual-ring magnet motor structure, designed to significantly reduce distortion and deliver a clearer, more detail-rich sound alongside a punchier, fuller bass signature.

Given the lack of overall clarity and bass punch we bemoaned in the original Ace, it’s pleasing to see Sonos attempting to rectify such issues when it comes to the Ace Ultra’s internal hardware. We’ll get to that below.

Features

As with all of its products – even a pair of headphones – much of the Ace Ultra’s appeal comes from their willingness to play ball with the extended Sonos ecosystem. Even if the Ace Ultra don’t end up scaling the loftiest of lofty heights sound-wise, we understand that much of their appeal comes from their intra-brand compatibility.

This includes using Sonos’ 'headphone linking' feature, allowing you to transfer sound to the Ace Ultra from most current Sonos products working under the Sonos 27 operating system, including the Arc Ultra, Ray, Beam (Gen 2) and new Beam Ultra soundbars, and the Sonos Five, Era 100, Era 300, Move 2, Play and Roam 2 wireless speakers.

We give the feature a whirl using the Beam (Gen 2) soundbar that’s currently housed in our test room. Using the Sonos app to get everything working under the same network, we’re able to swap audio from Blade Runner 2049 from the Beam onto the headphones by pressing and holding the Ace Ultra’s content key for around five seconds. To get sound back onto the soundbar, we simply press and hold the button again, and the second-gen Beam takes over audio duties once more.

Sonos’ TrueCinema calibration tech also returns, which uses spatial software to tailor your headphones’ acoustics to your room, granting a more cinematic experience when watching Dolby Atmos-soundtracked movies. The headphones then ‘externalise’ the audio out of your head while the tech creates a more balanced reproduction that matches the real-world dimensions and characteristics of your listening room.

TrueCinema is quick to set up via the app – for us it takes around two minutes – and once we have it switched on, we notice that Blade Runner 2024 sounds impressively cinematic thanks to the headphones’ purposeful placement of spoken dialogue, whooshing spaceships and humming engines.

Away from fancy linking capabilities, the Ace Ultra boast a very healthy 35-hour battery life with noise cancelling activated, a figure that’s up from the 30 hours of the original Ace and five more hours than the Sony WH-1000XM6 can manage under the same conditions. As before, you also get three hours of playback from a three-minute boost.

The higher-quality aptX Lossless Bluetooth codec is supported for streaming files up to 16-bit/44.1kHz, while native support for 16-bit/48kHz resolution is available via the wired USB connection. Both USB-C to USB-C and USB-C to 3.5mm cables are included in the box.

Alongside TrueCinema, the Ace Ultra support Dolby Atmos spatial audio content with head tracking from platforms such as Tidal, Amazon Music and Apple, though there’s no toggle in the app to actively switch it on and off.

Listening to a Dolby mix via Tidal, the bass drum kicks at the outset of Billie Jean do sound a little deeper and more recessed, while the snares seem to echo within a more spacious backdrop, but the differences are relatively subtle when comparing against a standard stereo recording. David Bowie’s Heroes seems to work more effectively, with the Ace Ultra working to make those arcing guitar effects soar far higher than they usually would.

The effects of head tracking are far more noticeable, with the headphones able to quickly and smoothly transfer audio from earcup to earcup to simulate the effect of having your music playing from a fixed point.

ANC & call quality

We weren’t exactly bowled over with how the original Ace handled noise cancelling, so we’re happy to report that Sonos has made marked improvements to the new Ace Ultra in this regard.

The new over-ears offer standard full ANC alongside a more transparent ‘Aware Mode’. Within Aware Mode, you can also choose to toggle a Voice Boost setting which, as the name suggests, spotlights external voices to keep you aware of, say, announcements on public transport.

Sonos has pledged that the new headphones are twice as effective at blocking unwanted noise compared with the original Ace, with the Ace Ultra housing 10 microphones – up from eight – backed by an adaptive ANC system that continuously monitors your surroundings to deliver the best experience possible.

Such efforts have paid dividends. The Ace Ultra have dramatically closed the gap between their Sony WH-1000XM6 and Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) rivals, so that the general hum and rush of the outside world is impressively damped down – if not completely removed – when donning the Ace Ultra.

Piercing highs and sonic boom lows will still penetrate your serene bubble, but this is a vastly improved experience, and the Ace Ultra do a far better job of making the clamour and clutter of environmental noise feel more subdued.

Nearby voices and general chatter are still audible, but rarely to the extent that they feel bothersome or overly intrusive. For quelling the general hum and pulse of the world as it turns, though, the Ace Ultra are up to scratch, and certainly a good deal better than the original Ace.

Call quality is capably handled, too, but it doesn’t quite keep pace with the headphones’ improved noise cancelling. Taking our Sonos test pair out for a call next to a busy main road reveals the headphones’ capacity to make voices sound clear and well spotlighted, but they let in a good deal more environmental noise than the more isolating Sony WH-1000XM6.

Sound

This is more like it.

While the original Ace’s rather lacklustre sound was something of a damp squib, the new Ace Ultra are a firm step in the right direction. Sonos hasn’t arrived at the enlightened echelons of sonic Nirvana just yet, but it has imprinted a few eager footsteps on the path to better audio.

While the original Ace sounded timid, almost apologetic in their presentation, the Ace Ultra benefit from a much-needed dose of self-belief. These headphones sound far more self-assured than their de facto predecessors, with a rich, full-bodied sound that brings a muscular, confident presence to the tunes we feed them.

That newfound punch and power comes to the fore during a listen to Björk’s Army Of Me which, through the Ace Ultra, pulsates with a raw and assertive energy befitting the track’s original intent. The premium cans grant that massive drum beat perceptible heft, while Björk’s insistent calls that “if you complain once more / you’ll meet an army of me” have the weight and urgency to have us rethinking our current life choices.

This isn’t the subtlest presentation you’ll ever hear – and certainly not as insightful or layered as the breathtakingly detailed Sennheiser HDB 630 – but the fullness of the Ace Ultras’ delivery is undeniably satisfying, like a big old burger shovelled down after a rowdy night on the town.

Instrumental textures are weighty and assured, and while the HDB 630 fill in the gaps in between with more delicacy and precision, the Sonos have enough textural insight to feel adequately well-rounded. To return to our burger analogy, you can discern the taste of sharp pickles and tangy onions as opposed to nothing but fat, meaty beef.

That bottom bun isn’t too soggy, either, by which we mean the Sonos over-ears do well to keep their bass reproduction in check. The Ace Ultra aren’t short on lower-end clout, yet they do well to prevent those bass frequencies from sounding rumbly or lacking definition.

A wired connection helps to further firm up the bass just a tad, with a physical tether giving the Sonos over-ears a slightly lighter, clearer presentation than via Bluetooth. It isn’t night and day by any means, but it feels as though the Ace Ultra are painting with a finer, lighter brush when listening with the provided cables.

Wired or wireless, though, the Ace Ultra aren’t quite the finished article. Rhythmically, they’re not the most agile premium headphones we’ve ever clamped over our ears, nor are they the most precise. Leading edges of notes don’t cut through with the razor-sharp precision of the Sennheiser HDB 630 or Sony WH-1000XM6, robbing Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground of its peppy potential when played via the Ace Ultra.

Dynamically, there’s also room for improvement, and while we can’t fault the headphones’ power, everything tends to sound a little one-size-fits-all. Listening to Hans Zimmer’s Jack Sparrow from the Pirates Of The Caribbean soundtrack highlights this comparative deficiency, as those raucous, swooping strings aren’t quite communicated with the jaunty abandon as befits the track’s off-kilter namesake.

Again, the class leaders from Sennheiser and Sony are simply more expressive and engaging in this regard, delighting in how they reproduce every arcing rise and swooping fall of the strings as they swell and break throughout the Pirates score. The Ace Ultra are the gentle lapping of waves on a shore – their rivals, by contrast, are like a cresting musical tsunami.

Verdict

The Sonos Ace Ultra are a significant improvement on the original three-star Ace. They haven’t reached that fifth star yet, but thanks to their powerful sound, improved noise cancelling and compatibility with the wider Sonos ecosystem, this is a far more compelling demonstration that Sonos could one day contend with the best of Sony, Sennheiser and Bowers & Wilkins.

If you’re a devotee needing a pair of wireless headphones to go with your Sonos soundbars and wireless speakers, we wouldn’t dissuade you from adding the Ace Ultra to your collection.

Review published: 22nd September 2026

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Build 4
• Features 5

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Read our review of the Sony WH-1000XM6

Also consider the Sennheiser HDB 630

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