Equipped with spatial audio and multi-room control technology, headphones are integrated with home audio and video

In the wireless headset market, in addition to the growing demand for TWS headsets, there is also a lot of demand for headphones with the advantage of high sound quality. At the same time, with the iteration of technology, there are more potential demands to be explored. Just this year, the headphone market ushered in two new products, one is Dyson's head-mounted Bluetooth headset Dyson OnTrac, and the other is Sonos's first headphone Sonos Ace. For both brands, the launch of new products has become a key factor in brand growth and market competitiveness to a certain extent.

From these two new products, we can see that audio experience and battery life are still important concerns for wireless headset products. In addition, there have been new progress in the interaction with other smart devices.

Sonos is an American audio company founded in 2022, dedicated to integrated wireless smart speakers, smart home theater speakers, and wireless smart speaker connector devices. It has pioneered multi-room control technology, and its products are characterized by wireless connection, high-quality sound and multi-room control, that is, the ability to team up speakers in different rooms and play them simultaneously. Sonos speakers have always been popular in the field of home audio and video, and multi-room background music systems.

Today, Sonos has also given multi-room control technology to the Sonos Ace headset.

In wireless transmission, Bluetooth technology is one of the mainstream technologies. However, when transmitting audio files using Bluetooth, the files will be compressed, so the sound quality of the transmitted audio files will deteriorate. In addition, when the Bluetooth speaker is playing music, there is a message reminder and the music will be interrupted.

Another wireless transmission technology, Wi-Fi, can solve these problems to a certain extent. According to the introduction, Sonos' multi-room control technology uses Wi-Fi technology, which can transmit audio on the mobile phone to multiple speakers in the room. So how is multi-room control technology applied to headphones? According to the introduction,

Sonos Ace uses Wi-Fi technology to stream the audio source to the headphones. After mixing the sound source on the audio side, the user will get a sound effect similar to spatial audio on the headphone side. Of course, the sound quality bit rate transmitted through Wi-Fi technology is not as good as the bit rate of CD sound quality. The higher the bit rate, the better the audio quality. Sonos audio engineers mentioned in an interview with the media that the bit rate of Wi-Fi transmission is about 345kbps, and the bit rate of CD quality sound is 1411kbps (44.1KHz*16 bits).

In order to enhance the spatial audio experience of Sonos Ace headphones, Sonos uses the new TrueCinema technology to accurately map the space and provide a stronger surround sound experience. After connecting to the room sound system, you can experience a more immersive audio experience, such as when watching a ball game.

Of course, the audio experience of Sonos Ace headphones also requires hardware support. The product is equipped with a Qualcomm Bluetooth main control chip and supports Bluetooth version 5.4. When the Android device is also equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, it supports Qualcomm's smooth listening technology and 24bit/96kHz lossless transmission. iOS devices support lossless audio when using a USB-C wired connection. The built-in 8 beamforming microphones and 2 40mm dynamic units provide it with positioning and other technologies, which is also the key to the realization of spatial audio and head tracking.

In terms of voice interaction, Sonos Ace supports Siri and Google Assistant voice assistants. With the development of technology, more and more headphone products have built-in voice assistants and support always-on voice wake-up functions. Sonos Ace will also build its own voice assistant in the future to create its own closed ecological loop. Multi
-room music system is Sonos' advantage. Now it has extended this advantage to wearable devices. The launch of Sonos Ace headphones has become an important step to complement Sonos in the audio track. With its high-end configuration and innovative technology, Sonos has officially entered the high-end headphone market, benchmarking products from brands such as Apple AirPods and Bose. In the future, the headphone market may become even more lively.