Could an Ace sequel be on the horizon?
Sonos headphones are like buses. You wait ages for one to arrive and then two arrive at once.
Terrible analogy aside, and we might well be seeing a new pair of Sonos headphones soon, despite the Sonos Ace only launching a few months ago.
That’s the word according to seasoned tipster Mark Gurman over on Bloomberg.
He states that some more advanced Sonos headphones, codenamed Roadhouse, could be introduced at the same $450 price-point that the Ace cans currently retail at; with $50 being cut from the Ace’s price at the same time.
It all sounds a tad messy and Gurman claims “some Sonos employees are skeptical that the move would succeed,” but, let’s face it, Sonos is a bit messy right now and maybe some left-field thinking might help to dig itself out the great big hole it has created in 2024.
The main area of Sonos’ current woes is, of course, the disastrous app rollout, which the multi-room audio specialist is trying hard to rectify.
But its fledgling headphone business is also said to be adding headaches the company could have definitely done without.
Reports suggest that sales of the Sonos Ace headphones have been pretty underwhelming and way below the expectations the Sonos top bods had hoped for.
It’s said that only around 200,000 units of the new Ace headphones have been sold so far. It’s purported that the Santa Barbra brand originally sought to build around 1 million Ace units per year but manufacturing has been slashed to just 10% of that number now.
So the plan, according to Gurman’s report, is to introduce a new, better, pair of Sonos headphones to kick-start that department.
If Sonos introduces some of the features that reviewers were critical of in their Ace verdicts – most notably allowing the headphones to actually work within a multi-room system rather than just pairing with a soundbar – then it could be a good move.
In my Sonos Ace review I highlighted that they boasted great audio quality but let themselves down with buggy software and some missing features.
If Sonos fixes those criticisms, with a fresh pair of headphones at the same price, it could be a masterstroke.
And, my gosh, does the brand need something to go right soon.
