Sonos May Win at Headphone Checkers, But Apple’s Playing Chess

After years of waiting, Sonos has finally announced its first-ever headphones, the Sonos Ace. It’s easy to hyperbolize the importance of any new product release for a company, but this is unquestionably an inflection point for Sonos.

It’s a line in the sand for the brand partially because 2024 hasn’t exactly started well for the company. The recent rollout of its new app hasn’t gone smoothly with some of the brand’s core customer base. The company’s revenue has also dipped also as sales of slowed from pandemic highs. 

Then there’s the fact that headphones are an entirely new category for the brand, which could help Sonos expand its customer base and serve as a new entry point for its deeper audio ecosystem. Company executives also report that Sonos fans have long clamored for Sonos headphones. So, at a minimum, the launch could juice more revenue from those already heavily invested in the brand. 

Given this backdrop, a wildly popular new product could be just the shot in the arm Sonos needs. But at least a small amount of cold water is still lurking in the backdrop, which could dampen Sonos’s outlook.

Photo by Tucker Bowe for Gear Patrol

As someone who owns a lot of Sonos gear, I’m looking forward to testing out the Ace headphones at some point. But as much of a gadget nerd as I am, I can also admit that I’m far less likely to buy a pair of the Sonos Ace headphones than I would have been several years earlier. And that’s not a knock at all on what Sonos just revealed.

On paper at least, the Ace headphones offer nearly everything I’d want from a pair of premium noise-canceling headphones and compare well against other top offerings from Bose, Sony, and Apple. 

I say nearly because, as a Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV owner, which collectively account for ~90% of my music and video consumption these days, easily integrating with my Apple gear is also now a huge priority when it comes to choosing headphones.

And yet, no matter how adept Sonos may be at making great audio equipment, the company will never be able to excel on this front the way Apple’s headphones do.

Anyone paying attention could foresee this outcome when Apple finally confirmed the elimination of the iPhone’s headphone jack in September 2016 and announced the first-ever AirPods during the same event. 

As I said in my review of the original AirPods, I was excited about the convenience of using compact wireless earbuds, especially a set that made pairing with my iPhone easy. But like many other tech journalists, I was also wary about what replacing a universal audio standard with a proprietary chip would mean for the headphone industry and long-term consumer choice. 

Still, it clearly didn’t bother me enough to vote against the movement with my dollars, as The Verge’s Nilay Patel suggested. In fact, I’ll confess to doing the exact opposite. 

Today, I own a pair of the first generation AirPods Pro as well as a pair of AirPods Max. Neither are perfect, especially the hefty AirPods Max. Both are starting to age noticeably too. But to Apple’s credit, they’ve also always been very well-rounded and versatile headphones. 

They each offer good, if not exceptional sound quality, solid noise cancellation and serviceable microphones. They also offer a bevy of useful though by no means essential features. This includes what I believe is a best in class transparency mode, support for spatial audio, integration with Apple’s Find My App in the event they are lost and the even ability to test how the Ear Tips fit, at least in the case of the AirPods Pro. 

The kicker of course has always been how easily they connect to and transition between the other Apple products I own. While pairing or switching isn’t always the frustration-free, one tap affair Apple implied it would be, it is usually a smoother and faster experience than the traditional Bluetooth pairing rigamarole. 

Henry Phillips

Assuming the price was equal, you’d think sound quality and noise canceling would be the key deciding factor for buyers, with comfort and aesthetics potentially serving as tiebreakers. 

For the record, though, the price isn’t equal to that of Apple’s AirPods Max. The stated MSRP of the AirPods Max is $540 or just over $100 more than the $449 price of the Sonos Ace, although the AirPods Max now routinely sell for a discounted street price of $450 – $500.

But even despite the price gap, I’ll admit that if the Ace only matches the audio quality of Apple’s headphones, I won’t be tempted to switch. 

Even if the Sonos Ace headphones beat Apple’s AirPods in audio quality, at least within some relative marginal improvement range, I’d still likely stick with Apple’s AirPods lineup now and in the future. 

And I doubt I’m alone in that opinion. 

Several years after the launch of the AirPods in 2016, the Sonos Ace would have been a must-buy for me, or at least something I’d not-so-subtly request for a holiday or birthday gift. 

Today, though, what was once a non-factor in headphone purchasing decisions, i.e., how deeply they integrate with your other tech, is now a significant purchasing factor in the post-headphone-jack era, especially when streaming audio and video is the new norm. 

I’m not an economist, but these aren’t the consumer decision dynamics of a fiercely competitive and unrestricted market. Cheaper and potentially equally good, if not better-performing, products should usually win out with consumers in head-to-head competition — assuming each competitor’s product is free to offer consumers the same general benefits. 

Photo by Tucker Bowe

Still, mourning lock-in effects in the premium active noise-canceling headphone market is a first-world problem. Nobody forced me at gun point to buy Apple phones, tablets, and computers. I bought into the Apple ecosystem because I wanted and liked what it had to offer. I’m also happy to admit that I constantly benefit from the unique capabilities only Apple gear provides due to its tight vertical integration over software and hardware. 

This is why it’s called the walled garden instead of Shawshank, because it’s really quite a lovely place to spend time as a consumer, granted you’re ok with sticking around forever. 

But on days like today, its hard not to ask a few what-ifs. What if Apple hadn’t removed the headphone jack on the iPhone 7? What if the Bluetooth Special Interest Group had at least shown even a flicker of urgency to improve on the technology faster? What if Google or another company had figured out a better way to integrate wireless audio in a more open way? What if in a really far out timeline, Apple had decided to improve the wireless pairing process via a non-proprietary standard, much in the way it’s worked to buttress Qi2 charging of late?

Perhaps smartphones would still be bigger or less advanced than they are today. Maybe the AirPods and the boom of wireless earbuds that followed would have never existed, or would have at least taken up residence in our ears at a slightly slower rate.

But would that alternate timeline be notably worse than where we’ve wound up? Especially given the downsides we’re seeing that can come when any single company holds a dominate marketshare position in a key consumer industry?

At least in this moment, as a fan of both Sonos and Apple, “maybe not” feels more like the right answer than it should.

Sonos

Sonos Ace

The Sonos Ace is the company’s first pair of wireless over-ear noise-canceling headphones. For those who have a Sonos soundbar, you can quickly swap your TV’s audio to these headphones for a private listening session.

• $449 at Sonos

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