Sonos speakers have Trueplay, automatically adjusting EQ to suit the room they’re in; Ace will support a new system called TrueCinema. Like other headphones, Ace has a virtual acoustic model of a room on which it’ll base how the spatial audio sounds. Expected to launch later in 2024, TrueCinema will run a roughly minute-long one-off calibration and replace that with a custom model for your actual TV room.
That’ll take into account the position of sounds, their volume, and their depth from the screen, to make the virtualized perfect 7.1.4 sound system complete with overhead speakers. Since the model is for the room, any set of Ace headphones that connect with that soundbar will get the benefit. Or, you can turn spatial audio (and head tracking) off altogether, in the Sonos app.
Chris Davies/SlashGear
You probably won’t want to, though. I’m not a huge fan of spatial audio music — I find the results to be hit and miss as to whether I enjoy it or not — but surround sound for TV and movies is far more successful, to my ears. At first, as Sonos ran through its demo reel, I was a little surprised that the effect wasn’t more blatant, though that lighter touch felt more understandable after longer viewing. Having the soundtrack thrown at you from all directions, even in an action movie, can quickly get tiresome.
Instead, it feels much akin to listening to an actual Sonos soundbar. For dialog-heavy content, that meant voices staying pinned centrally even as I turned. Explosions in “Dune” related to their position on-screen (or behind it) regardless of the direction I faced. Perhaps the biggest compliment is how quickly you stop noticing it all, just like how you quickly take surround sound for granted.
