Why Finding Budget-Friendly Sonos Headphones Alternatives May Prove Difficult

Sonos has long built a reputation for high-quality networked speakers, all built around its custom music playback ecosystem controlled through its mobile app. At first, Sonos was limited to dedicated music-playback systems, but more recently, the company's product line has expanded to include amps, soundbars, and portable speakers. 

There seemed only one major audio frontier was left for Sonos to conquer, and that was headphones. Sure enough, in May 2024, the $449 Sonos Ace headphones were unveiled. A couple weeks later, we got our hands on them for our official Sonos Ace review, giving the cans a nine out of 10 rating and a SlashGear Editor's Choice recommendation badge.

However, for a lot of people, $449 is a bit steep for a pair of headphones, even high-quality ones like the Ace. There are a lot of different headphones at just as many different price points, many of which offer surprisingly good sound at prices a lot lower than $449. So if the release of the Sonos Ace got you interested in buying a new pair of over-ear headphones but don't want to break the bank, let's go over some less expensive alternatives with similar, but not the same, feature sets.

Before we start down our list of competing headphones, it's important to understand that none of them can fully compete with the Sonos Ace. The Sonos headphones have a unique feature that you may not have heard about. 

Until now, if something was in the Sonos ecosystem, even the newer Roam and Move portable speakers with Bluetooth connectivity, it could be designated as a "zone" in a multi-room Sonos system for lossless Wi-Fi-based music delivery. This lets you play the same music across multiple rooms simultaneously wherever there's a Sonos speaker or amp, as well as handing off the audio between rooms as you move from one to the other. Surprisingly, though, the Sonos Ace can not be designated as a Sonos system zone.

What's the unique feature, then? It uses Wi-Fi, but only to send TV audio over from a Sonos soundbar for "TV Audio Swap," not music controlled by the Sonos mobile app. And at least at launch, it isn't even compatible with all of Sonos's soundbars. According to Sonos themselves, it's only available via the Sonos Arc and Arc SL soundbars for now, with support "coming soon" for the entry-level Sonos Ray soundbar and both generations of the middle-tier Sonos Beam soundbars.

So, while there are many alternative Bluetooth headphones with noise cancellation and, if we can find the right deal, spatial audio support, you can't expect anything like TV Audio Swap from the competition. 

Let's start with some of the best of the low end, Anker's $99.99 Soundcore Space One over-ear Bluetooth headphones with active noise cancellation and a Hi-Res Audio certification. In the last several years, Anker has snuck up on the competition to prove that it can deliver high-quality headphones and speakers at a reasonable price. You may think of Anker as merely a company that makes cables, chargers, power bricks, and similar accessories, but its well-reviewed Soundcore line may change your mind. For example, Soundcore's Motion X500 Bluetooth speaker with hi-res and spatial audio support was one of our favorite products of 2023, earning a nine out of 10 score and an Editor's Choice recommendation badge.

We haven't reviewed the Space One, but a lot of notable tech sites have, and the response has been excellent. The Wirecutter named it their pick for the best wireless headphones under $100 and budget pick for both best wireless headphones and best noise-cancelling headphones. Reviewer Lauren Dragan noted the comfort, sound quality, battery life, and, in particular, noise cancellation that was above average for $100 headphones. PC Mag provided a similar assessment with a four out of five star review, as did Tech Radar and Tom's Guide. The reviewers at Trusted Reviews, HowToGeek, Expert Reviews, and USA Today's Reviewed went even further, though, all awarding the Space One their respective recommendations.

Sennheiser is one of the most reliable names in headphones, with the German company making all sorts of different styles and fits across even more price points. This includes not just old standbys that have been on the market for many years like the audiophile-grade HD600 open-back headphones, but also newer product lines with Bluetooth and active noise cancellation. One of the best of its wireless options is the ACCENTUM Plus, which retails for $229.95 but can often be found for about $200.

Professional reviews of the ACCENTUM Plus have been stellar, with the promotional materials in the company's Amazon listing singling out one from UK lifestyle publication T3 that gave them five out of five stars. In particular, the review highlighted Sennheiser's well-regarded tonal response. "That telltale balance is here in spades, making for a wide and clean soundstage that suits all genres," reads the review. T3 also said the headphones have great battery life and noise cancellation, calling the latter "the best ANC for the money." ZDNet, meanwhile, labeled the ACCENTUM Plus "so close to perfect." Other publications offered similar praise, including for Sennheiser's bundled mobile app, which includes a guided process to help tune the in-app equalizer to your preferred sound signature if you don't like the company's defaults.

Beats headphones have a bad reputation among audiophiles who complain the headphones sound muddy, and have too much bass. Eventually, though, Beats adjusted its offerings to include the Studio series with a more balanced sound signature. For the purposes of this list, the Beats Studio Pro are a good option. One main thing that helps the headphones stand apart is that they have head tracking for spatial audio support when used with Apple products (Beats is an Apple subsidiary), while selling for much less than the Sonos Ace. Beats Studio Pro retails for $349.99, but can often be found for much less, sometimes dipping under $200 at Amazon.

Overall, the professional reviews have been pretty positive. Our own Beats Studio Pro review gave the headphones a nine out of 10 score, praising its battery life, "balanced sound", and the option of using the headphones as their own digital to analog converter by connecting it to your playback device via USB. ZDNet's Jada Jones was a bit more enthusiastic, saying the Studio Pro came "So close to being my dream headphones." Macworld granted the cans "Editors' Choice" status in its 4.5 out of five stars review, noting that even without the big price difference, they recommend the Studio Pro over the Apple AirPods Max.

Anker isn't the only brand delivering good Bluetooth noise-cancelling headphones for under $100. Another, less well-known brand, EarFun, has gotten in the mix with the Wave Pro, which retails for $79.99 but can sometimes be found for less. You typically don't expect professional reviewers to spend much time with newer, more obscure brands even when they tout hi-res audio certification and long battery life, but this is an exception. And according to those reviewers? The Wave Pro headphones are a heck of a deal.

Alex Bracetti of CNN Underscored led his review with a headline calling the Wave Pro "the best budget noise-canceling headphones I've tested," adding that it "rewards listeners with superb noise neutralization and sound for a fraction the cost of flagships from Apple, Bose, and Sony." Bracetti also noted that the claimed 80 hour battery life was real. Tech Radar gave the Wave Pro 4.5 stars out of five, saying that "it would be silly to ask more from budget wireless headphones," while Cult of Mac went the full five stars and said the cans "break new ground on value."

Let's add one more option, this time from one of the longtime global leaders in home and personal audio, Sony. Sadly, while the company's products have long been associated with sleek styling and sound, the company's product names are often terrible. These headphones, for example, are called WH-CH720N, which rolls right off the tongue. They typically sell for $149.99 but sometimes drop below $100. They fit into Sony's wide range of headphones as the Japanese electronics giant's budget noise-canceling option, but reviewers tend to agree that they perform quite well.

Tech Radar rated the headphones four out of five stars, saying they "pack in a lot of audio finesse and smart features for the price." What Hi-Fi? was positively glowing, giving the WH-CH720N a full five stars and declaring it a 2023 What Hi-Fi Awards winner, saying the headphones "have delivered exactly what Sony intended." Reviewers also praised the company's accompanying app, and quality sound, saying it came across as nicer than the more-budget price would suggest. CNN Underscored also loved the awkwardly-named headphones, saying Sony "has managed to disrupt the cheap ANC headphone market" with a budget model worthy of the brand.

This pretty much had to be a list of alternative noise-cancelling wireless headphones given the lack of TV Audio Swap on non-Sonos Ace headphones, but we tried our best to find anything that could compete. The lack of alternatives, particularly at prices lower than that of the Ace, meant that the Beats Studio Pro was the only pair of headphones that managed to stack up with noise-canceling and spatial audio. 

One popular pair of headphones we left off the list was the SteelSeries New Arctis Nova 4 gaming headset. Though its microphone is retractable, allowing you to lean back and use the headset as headphones, it only works over its included 2.4GHz transmitter, not Bluetooth, so we couldn't include it.

Overall, to whittle down the many wireless noise-cancelling headphone options currently available, we consulted various review sites. If there was a consensus that they were strong performers across the vast majority of their available professional reviews, then it became easy to add them to this list. Thankfully, there was no shortage of reviews available for anything we were looking at, even more obscure entries like the EarFun Wave Pro.