Sonos may have had its worst year on record, but now that the Sonos Ace wireless headphones are at their all-time lowest price for Cyber Monday ($349), now is the time to buy them.
I know, the Sonos app redesign caused major chaos and the damage done has still not been 100% fixed, but hear me out: I think the Sonos Ace are great wireless headphones, even if you never use them with a Sonos system.
It starts with the design. I don’t know how a company that has never made a set of headphones managed to create one of the comfiest and most elegant models on the market, but that’s exactly what Sonos accomplished. The Sonos Ace not only look fantastic in either black or white but they also feel just as good when worn.
The Ace have a nearly perfect amount of clamping pressure, and thanks to how closely the earcups sit to your head, you barely notice them as you move around.
The controls are also remarkably simple. The combination of a multifunction sliding button plus a dedicated button for ANC modes is both intuitive and easy to use, even with gloves on. That’s not something that Bose, Sony, or Sennheiser can say about their flagship headphones.
Active noise cancellation is excellent, but it’s the Ace’s transparency mode that really impresses. It’s comparable to the Apple AirPods Max and Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones.
It’s also worth calling out the Ace’s comprehensive set of connections. You get Bluetooth 5.4 with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Sound for both hi-res and lossless streaming from compatible phones. Plus, in the box you get two types of cables: a 3.5mm-to-USB-C for analog listening, and a double-USB-C cable for lossless digital listening from any USB-C-equipped computer or smartphone.
The Sonos Ace’s sound quality is, by any measure, really good. You may prefer the slightly livelier sound of a Bose, or the punchier bass of Sony, but I’m fairly certain you’re going to love listening to the Ace.
There’s a lot more to say about these Sonos wireless headphones (like battery life, spatial audio, call quality, etc.), and I cover it all in my in-depth review — including the surprisingly limited options Sonos owners have for integrating the Ace into their home systems.
But that’s my point: Being a Sonos owner isn’t a prerequisite for buying the Sonos Ace. If you want an amazing set of wireless, noise-canceling cans, the Sonos Ace are right up there with the very best.
Instagram is making its way to yet another screen, and this time, Apple TV is getting a taste of the Reels rabbit hole. The company has launched a dedicated Instagram app for Apple TV, bringing Reels, longer videos, and live shows to the big screen. So, if watching one quick clip on a phone somehow turns into an hour of scrolling, there's now a much larger screen for that.
Instagram brings Reels and more to Apple TV
Audio-Technica, a brand well known for making some of the best studio and professional headphones on the market, has just come out with the ATH-AWX7000, which the company itself claims to be its "finest headphones ever." The new flagship closed-back headphone has debuted at an eye-watering price of $3,799. It combines hand-finished Japanese woodwork with a newly developed 58mm driver.
The earcups are made from Kiso cypress, a prized wood historically used for Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. Each housing is finished by hand with traditional Echizen lacquer, which brings out the grain and is expected to darken over time. The frame and sliders are finished in a deep navy kachi-iro shade traditionally associated with samurai.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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