Headphones are usually associated with music, and nowadays with active noise cancellation that makes life more tolerable in noisy offices or air travel. But one of the major uses of headphones, and one that is growing due to the terrible audio mixes in new movies TV series, is to pair them with the TV for more personal binge-watch sessions. Still, in India we have a dearth of TV-centric headphones. For example, finding good RF (radio frequency) headphones is a task. But after using the Sonos Ace for over two weeks I think it is a great pair of headphones to use with a TV.

Although the Ace is a Bluetooth headphone and therefore has the same latency and range issues as all other headphones, there is a trick to it. And that trick is audio swap when used with a Sonos soundbar.

You see, Sonos is a big name in the home audio segment, and its soundbars are quite popular and sought after. To take advantage of this, Sonos has launched its first headphones – the Ace – with an audio swap feature. The idea is that when a person wants to watch television while wearing headphones, whether he wants to do so because he doesn’t want to disturb others in the room, or if he simply wants to because he likes the immediacy of sound he gets from headphones, he should be able to do so with the click of a button.

This is an interesting feature and one of the highlights of the Ace. So, I tried it for over two weeks and was impressed. However, there were a few issues with it as well.

Sonos Ace and TV: The good thing

Let’s start with the sound itself. I touched on this in my full Sonos Ace review, but it’s worth repeating. The Ace’s sound signature is very well suited for TV sound. Unlike songs, the sound in movies and TV shows is mostly in the middle. There’s some low-end bass – the rumble and roar of Godzilla – and it can get a little loud like screams in horror shows, but most of the sound is in the middle. It’s also a dialogue-heavy sound. Given that the Ace likes to be in the middle, but at the same time without fear of bass and treble, it’s perfect for use while watching TV.

Over the two weeks I used the Ace I spent watching Kaos, a new Netflix show that features sharp dialogue and some popular songs from the ’80s and ’70s as overlays. The Ace made me enjoy the sound a lot more than the Bose QC35 II I usually pair with my TV. This was also the case when I watched the Lord of the Rings movies and films like Godzilla, Dunkirk, and Interstellar, all of which have a heavy emphasis on sound.

In terms of comfort while watching TV, I found the Ace to be mostly comfortable, but not as light or comfortable as the Bose QC 35 II. But then the Ace is also better built and there is always a compromise between comfort and build quality because the better the build quality, the heavier the product.

While watching TV, I used the Ace both ways: as a standalone Bluetooth headphone, and as a Sonos headphone paired with a Sonos soundbar — the Beam 2 in this case.

The sound quality was fantastic in both cases, but I clearly preferred the sound swap mode that Sonos offers. Once setup — and more on this a bit later — using the Ace with a paired soundbar is incredibly easy and convenient. The multi-functional volume rocker on its right earcup also serves as a button to swap audio between the headphones and the soundbar. A long press on the button connects or disconnects.

In paired mode, the Sonos Ace uses the local WiFi network to stream sound. This is an improvement over Bluetooth as it not only means lower latency – almost no sound image sync issues – but also higher bandwidth for better quality audio.

Sonos Ace and TV: The bad side

Of course, it’s not all smooth sailing. There are a few aspects of Sound Swap that could have been better – or rather, could have been better. In short, there are three issues that bother me:

1- Setting up a Sonos system via the Sonos app is a hassle. It took me a while to setup the Beam 2 with the Sonos app and had to try multiple times before the app recognized the soundbar. The biggest hassle I had was managing the WiFi network. I didn’t know that Sonos soundbars can’t connect to 5GHz WiFi. Instead, they require 2.4GHz. I was only using 5GHz WiFi on my home network, all my devices connect to it. But for the Sonos Beam 2 I had to rekey the 2.4Ghz. In my opinion this is unnecessary in 2024.

Once the Beam 2 was setup and working, I connected the Sonos Ace to it for an audio swap. It was easy and quick.

2- My other complaint with the Sonos Ace using audio swap to the TV is that it cannot be controlled with the TV remote. When the soundbar is connected to the TV, its volume can be managed with the TV remote as the TV knows it is routing sound through the eArc port. But as soon as you swap audio from the soundbar to the Sonos Ace, this functionality goes away.

When I changed the volume using the TV remote while watching TV with the Sonos Ace, the sound neither increased nor decreased. In fact, nothing happened at all. And if I changed the volume using the headphone’s rocker, it changed but there was no feedback on the TV screen telling me what the sound level was.

This could also be a problem as my TV remote was not set to pair with the Beam 2. I did try to pair it and while I had an RF remote – the right kind – it did not work with the Beam 2.

Nonetheless, I believe that not getting volume feedback when watching TV through the Sonos Ace is an issue that Sonos can potentially fix with a software update.

3- When the Ace is paired with the Beam 2 and operating in audio swap mode, it disconnects its Bluetooth connection. This is fine in most cases, but it bothered me in one aspect: the battery indication. In some headphones – for example the Bose QC 35 – I can check the battery by pressing a button. In most other headphones, the battery status can be checked via the connected phone app. The Sonos Ace also allows viewing the battery status in its app. But when the Ace is being used with a soundbar and a TV, it disconnects from the app. In other words, while watching TV with the Ace you have no way of knowing its battery status until it gets so low that the status light starts flashing red.

Again, this is probably an issue that can be fixed with some clever software.

Sonos Ace as TV headphones

But despite the minor annoyances I think the Ace, because it uses Wi-Fi to stream sound and because of its sound signature, is actually one of the best headphones to buy in India for pairing with a TV. The sound in particular is great and I absolutely love it. This also applies when the Ace is used in Bluetooth mode.

But the whole setup is a little expensive and a little limiting too. You need two Sonos devices to swap sounds – the Ace and a soundbar like the Beam or Arc. And you need an iPhone or iPad to make it all work as the Sonos app only works with iOS or iPadOS at the moment. For a country like India, this is another limiting factor.

Still, here we don’t have too many options for headphones that can provide low-latency sound when paired with a TV. Generally, the best headphones to pair with a TV are RF headphones, which come with a small base station. They offer more robust connectivity and a network that can transmit sound without compressing it much, like Bluetooth. But these headphones are not widely available.

This is where the Sonos Ace fills the gap. Sure, it’s expensive, and it’s even more expensive when you consider the whole ecosystem. But it’s also versatile, and when paired with a TV, it delivers a great experience, making it a solid choice if you need something you’ll want to use while watching TV.