There’s a lot riding on Sonos’ first pair of wireless headphones; CEO Patrick Spence has expressed confidence that the new product category will be a huge revenue driver for his company after Sonos has faced cooling demand for its speakers. The headphones are expected to ship sometime next month, but today, we’re getting a first look at the hardware design — and we now know what they’ll be called.
You’re looking at the Sonos Ace headphones. These images were prematurely published by authorized Sonos parts dealer Schuurman. The main image reveals quite a few buttons on both ear cups, a toggle switch of some sort, and a premium build that seems fitting of headphones expected to be priced around $450. The Schuurman website shows a price of €403.58, which works out to slightly over $430 USD, so the rumored cost seems right on the money.
The Ace name is visible on this page. And as further confirmation, the Sonos subreddit has uncovered an early mention of it on the company’s own website, which is showing a search bar message about preordering the still-unannounced product. (Nice catch, Rogueoner29.) Want more evidence? The URL sonosace.com currently redirects to Sonos’ homepage. And Bloomberg has reported that “Duke,” seen in the product description, is the codename of the headphones. In short, there’s very little reason to doubt these images are the real deal.
The Sonos Ace headphones will offer tight integration with the company’s whole-home audio system; owners of Sonos soundbars will be able to listen to TV audio on the headphones, for example. Tapping into that ecosystem will be a key differentiator, but big questions remain. Can Sonos really hang with Apple, Sony, Sennheiser, and other high-end headphone makers when it comes to overall sound quality and features like active noise cancellation?
The Schuurman website also lists a Sonos Roam 2, another new product that the company is rumored to be launching sometime in the coming months. The original Roam was Sonos’ first truly portable, take-anywhere speaker, but some consumers have complained of battery problems over long-term usage since its release in 2021. There’s not as much to glean from this image, since the Roam 2’s design is basically identical to the first-gen speaker.