Hands on: Sonos Ace Ultra review

Sonos has been a major player in the world of wireless speakers, building much of its reputation on its multi-room ecosystem and – until recently, at least – its accompanying Sonos app.

The US brand has yet to make much of a mark in the world of headphones, though. Sonos’s first pair of wireless cans, the over-ear Sonos Ace, scored a disappointing three-star rating when we reviewed them back in 2024, and were outperformed by its Sony and Bose rivals.

As we said in our review: “the Sonos skip over the finer details and simply don’t stir the emotions like the very best pairs do.” Room for improvement, then.

This latest effort could spell a fresh start, though, with the new Sonos Ace Ultra headphones promising improved features and teasing a “rich, detailed audio” that aims to be more on par with the competitive premium wireless headphones market.

To get an idea of what the new headphones can do, I had an initial listen to the new Ace Ultra can at a hands-on launch session in Berlin during the IFA 2026 showcase.

Price

Sonos’s newest cans will set you back £399 / $449 / AU$699, pitting them against the Award-winning Sony WH-1000XM6 headphones, which launched at £400 / $450 / AU$699. That’s some tough competition already for the bushy-tailed Sonos hopefuls.

The original Ace headphones launched at £449 / $449 / AU$699, but they are currently available for less at £299 / $299 / AU$449. Surprisingly, Sonos says they will keep the original Ace on sale alongside the new step-up model, rather than Ace Ultra being a direct replacement.

Design and build

As I slip the demo pair of Ace Ultra headphones over my head, the first thing that becomes obvious is that Sonos is looking to prioritise wearer comfort. The soft memory foam ear cushions and the firm adjustable headband make it easy to imagine that, over longer listening sessions, the Ace Ultra would be easy to live with.

The ear pads attach magnetically and you can buy replacement ear cushions from the Sonos store, and you can even replace the battery yourself. That is great from a sustainability and cost perspective, and it’s all too rare from the major tech brands.

The Ace Ultra look very similar to the original Ace, but under the hood you will find brand-new Sonos-designed 40mm drivers. In theory, that should give the new headphones a big boost in sound quality.

Sonos has also included two more colour options as well as the classic Black and White: Agave (which looks like a greenish blue) and Sand.

Instead of opting for touch controls like many of its rivals, Sonos has once again gone for tactile buttons on the side of each cup, including controls to adjust noise-cancelling settings and power. The silver slider, or ‘content key’, gives you the same functionality as the previous model, so you can control volume, pause, and answer calls by sliding it up and down.

Features

If you hold down that content key slider, you can make the most of Sonos’s newly named ‘Fabric’ feature, which encompasses the multi-room capability of the brand’s ecosystem. This includes using the 'headphone linking' feature, which lets you transfer sound from a Sonos speaker or soundbar to the Ace Ultra headphones. This feature was restricted to select soundbar models in the original Ace, so it’s great to see the full feature that works with all current Sonos speakers on board this time around.

I get to see this in action during the demo, as the sound jumped from the Sonos Move 2 portable speaker to the headphones with a touch of a button in a matter of seconds. We then move to a different room, where the sound again transfers to a different Sonos speaker with the same ease.

A lot is going on behind the scenes, but the short of it is that the sound jumps to whatever product is within the closest proximity. It was all pretty impressive to watch, and it certainly speaks to the unique setup that you can get if you have several Sonos products in your home.

Active noise cancellation (ANC) is on board again, and Sonos claims that its effect is twice as powerful as the original Ace headphones. It’s an adaptive system which should be able to adjust in intensity as your surroundings change, and can also take into account any gaps in the seal due to glasses or hair. Presumably this is partly down to the fact that the new model boasts ten mics compared to eight used on the original Ace from 2024.

As with the previous Ace headphones, the Ace Ultra offer an Aware mode, which lets outside sounds in to keep you mindful of your surroundings, and there’s also support for Dolby Atmos spatial audio content with head tracking.

Battery life is a very healthy 35 hours with ANC activated (up from 30 hours from the original Ace) – that’s five more than the Sony WH-1000XM6’s claim of 30 hours under the same conditions. Sonos also says you can get three hours of playback from just three minutes of fast-charging, which is the same as the previous model.

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 a wired USB-C connection.

I didn’t get to connect the newly updated Sonos 27app to the headphones myself during the demo, but I get a glimpse of a few new features, including an interactive, granular volume dial that is activated by placing two of your fingers on the screen at the same time, then twisting to adjust.

Sound quality

So, how do the headphones actually sound? I had a chance to listen to the new cans during the brief demo, so what follows is an initial impression of the performance. We will have to wait for our review sample and put them through our comprehensive testing process before giving a final verdict.

With music streaming from Qobuz, I start with Muna’s Dancing on the Wall, and the sound is portrayed with a decent sense of spaciousness, and the instrumentals are reasonably well-placed around the soundfield. There’s a good sense of power from the bass, and it gives the track a solid foundation without overpowering the rest of the sound.

Moving to keep going! by Montaigne, the width of the soundstage really continues to blossom, although it's hard to get a handle on how well the Ace Ultra are handling the swell of dynamics during the track's intro in our brief listen.

It will be interesting to hear how the Ace Ultra measure up when pitted against price rivals such as the Sony WH-1000XM6 and the five-star Sennheiser HDB 630 during a longer listen, especially when it comes to subtler detail, dynamics and rhythmic ability. Those are key sonic features that are harder to discern during our brief demo, and we're hoping that Sonos has taken note of our concerns from the older Ace model to bring greater improvements here in the Ace Ultra.

The headphones’ noise-cancelling does seem to be working its magic, however. The conversation happening a couple of metres away in the demo room is barely audible, helping me feel more immersed in the music as it plays. Again, we’ll have to test these new over-ears in a greater variety of environments to see how their ANC quality fares against the best in class.

It’s also worth noting that I don’t get a chance to adjust the EQ controls during this demo, which could also have an impact on the sound quality.

Early verdict

The Ace Ultra have kept much of what we liked about Sonos’s debut over-ear headphones, with a comfortable and practical design, and new features that should make them appealing to those with multiple Sonos products at home already.

Judging by this initial experience, it seems the new premium Sonos wireless headphones offer clear vocals and a reasonably organised sound, along with improved ANC, but we’ll need further dedicated testing time to discover if they surpass the original Aces’ three-star appraisal and come close to – or even beat – the current class leaders in this highly competitive category.

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