The Sonos Ace Ultra needs to fix two major issues to succeed

It’s been two years since Sonos released its first over-ear wireless headphones, the Sonos Ace, and recent leaked images suggest that the successor may finally be on the way soon. Aside from having noticeably larger earcups, the Ace has two issues that irk me every time I use them, which the purportedly named Sonos Ace Ultra must fix for me to think about buying or recommending them, especially if they are going to cost more than $449: the tuning and connectivity.

First off, the sound quality of the Sonos Ace headphones varies drastically depending on whether ANC is on or off, and it’s incredibly annoying. With ANC on, there is strong low-end emphasis, giving movies and bass-heavy tracks that theater-in-your-ears rumble I look for. But with ANC off, that low end drops away almost entirely, leaving a thinner, less full sound. Take a look at our charts below to see the difference for yourself (The yellow dotted line shows the frequency response of the Sonos Ace with ANC off).

That leaves me to try and compensate for the underemphasized low-end with an app which, by the way, only gives you two EQ sliders, bass and treble, and nothing for the midrange, which is exactly where the over-emphasized bass tends to bury vocals in the first place. Having a more robust equalizer would also be great, but the more fundamental issue is ensuring the tuning doesn’t change with ANC. There’s no way to save separate ANC on/off settings, so every time I switch between them, I have to go back into the app and adjust manually.

Secondly, I experienced consistent connection issues with the Ace headphones. Sonos gave them an exclusive soundbar hand-off feature, TV Audio Swap, so you can send your TV’s audio to the Ace instead of the soundbar. It works right up until you leave the soundbar’s line of sight or put a wall between you and it, at which point the audio cuts out. It’s one of the most common frustrations you’ll see from other owners, too, and it’s a strange one for Sonos in particular, a company that built its entire speaker lineup on reliable whole-home Wi-Fi.

The good news is that the FCC filing for the Ace Ultra points to real dual-band Wi-Fi hardware on board this time, not just Bluetooth, which has me wondering whether these headphones could finally act like an actual Sonos speaker on my network instead of just a Bluetooth device. If that holds up, it’s the kind of change that could fix the dropped connections for good and maybe open the door to streaming your own music library the way any other Sonos room in the Sonos app can.

The comfort, build quality, and battery life on the original Ace have held up well for me, so I’m not worried about the hardware basics. Sure, we can see they have larger earcups and a new physical switch control, but I want to see whether Sonos used this generation to fix the two things that most often annoy me about these headphones. A steadier connection and a sound that doesn’t change so wildly when using ANC would actually make the Ultra worth the name and the likely higher price tag.