So the reviews of the Sonos Ace Ultra headphones, the sequel to the Sonos Ace, which became the lighting rod for the botched Sonos app revamp that accompanied the headphones, are out. But seeing as I only received them yesterday, here are my first impressions.
The Sonos Ace Ultra expands on the TV Audio Swap feature introduced with the Sonos Ace, which lets users switch the audio between a compatible Sonos soundbar and the headphones. Now, instead of being limited to soundbars, users can swap the audio from a nearby Sonos speaker to the Ace Ultra and vice versa.
Caveats: The Ace Ultra and the Sonos speaker must be on the same Wi-Fi network. If the Ace Ultra is playing music via Bluetooth — from your smartphone, for example — this audio transfer doesn’t work. The playback must be initiated in the Sonos app, which now treats the Sonos Ace Ultra as part of the Sonos ecosystem, like it’s a Sonos speaker, and not a second-class citizen like it was for the Sonos Ace.
Also, while the Sonos Ace Ultra uses Wi-Fi during this switching process, the audio playback doesn’t actually use Wi-Fi. This is unlike say the Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro, which actually delivers higher quality audio via Wi-Fi.
So aside from this headline feature that’s likely appreciated only by Sonos users, the Sonos Ace Ultra does offer solid improvements in battery life (35 hours on a single charge, which is 5 hours longer), sound quality, and more importantly, active noise cancellation (ANC).
In fact, Sonos says the ANC on the Ace Ultra is twice as effective as that from the Sonos Ace. From my roughly two-hour session in a coffeeshop, the Ace Ultra certainly delivers the goods. When I’m playing music on these headphones, I can’t barely anything in my surroundings. The only sounds that consistently evaded the ANC were the high-pitched voices of children.
Meanwhile, the Sonos Ace Ultra sounds pleasant, for lack of a better word. The bass is solid, there’s good stereo separation, and everything seems nicely balanced. It feels like it’s tuned for the mainstream audience, which may make it seem boring to some. But there’s an 8-band equaliser in the app if you prefer something different. There are also other improvements such as the replaceable battery that may be worth the purchase.
But the key here is the S$699 pricing, which makes the Sonos Ace Ultra more expensive than its closest rivals (Sony and Bose). Yes, it’s the same price as the Sonos Ace at launch, but the Ace got heavily discounted soon after. I don’t think the Ace Ultra, which feels more polished, and actually works better with Sonos’ other products, will get the same treatment. In other words, I’m not sure if the Sonos Ace Ultra is sufficiently competitive to acquire new users from outside the Sonos ecosystem.
This week, we tested Vivo’s new camera phone, which can be augmented with a telephoto kit. We also tried out Apple’s Mac mini with the very capable M6 chip, and had a lot fun playing as a vampire in action RPG The Blood of Dawnwalker.
The Vivo X500 Pro Max is the Chinese smartphone maker’s next camera-centric smartphone. It’s the sequel to the Vivo X300 series, and can actually use the same Telephoto Extender Gen 2 Ultra kit from the Vivo X300 Ultra. Obviously, the camera performance seems impressive from our quick hands-on, but it also has a capable MediaTek chip, and a large 7,800mAh battery.
Despite sporting the basic M6 chip, the Apple Mac mini with M6 is surprisingly capable. The compact form factor is unchanged, but it boasts 4x faster AI performance, meaning up to 4.8 times faster for LLM prompt processing in LM Studio compared with the M4 Mac mini. Besides AI, it’s also great for everyday computing, from photo and video editing to gaming. Prices, though, are more expensive than before, and starts at S$1,299.
If you’re a fan of RPG games, especially The Witcher series or the Kingdom Come: Deliverance games, The Blood of Dawnwalker is not to be missed. With a twist on time-management, a day/night cycle that affects quests and combat, and meaningful moral choices in its story-driven quests, it’s fun with plenty of replayability.