Sonos Unveils Beam Ultra and Ace Ultra
Sonos adds a $699 compact soundbar with physical Dolby Atmos height drivers and $449 flagship headphones with Early Access system linking. Both ship September 29.
Sonos did not announce a Beam 3 or an Ace 2. Instead it unveiled two Ultra models.
Beam Ultra and Ace Ultra are available to preorder today (September 1) with general availability set for September 29. Beam Ultra costs $699 and Ace Ultra costs $449. Meanwhile, Beam (Gen 2) remains on sale for $499 and the original Ace remains $399.
In other words, neither new product functions as a clean replacement at launch. Sonos is building a more expensive step above two products it already sells.
The question is not whether the new models are better. It is whether Beam Ultra is $200 better than Beam (Gen 2), and whether Ace Ultra earns its $50 premium over Ace.
The lineup at a glance
| New model | Price | Existing model still on sale | What the premium buys |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beam Ultra | $699 | Beam (Gen 2), $499 | Nine drivers, two physical up-firing tweeters, Sonos-rated 7.1.2 Atmos, Bluetooth, Android Quick Tuning and four-level AI Speech Enhancement |
| Ace Ultra | $449 | Sonos Ace, $399 | Ten microphones, 35-hour ANC battery rating, expanded EQ, replaceable battery and Early Access Headphone Linking |
Beam Ultra is a real hardware upgrade
Beam (Gen 2) uses five active drivers and virtual height processing. Beam Ultra changes the underlying hardware rather than merely revising the software.
Its nine Class-D amplifiers power five tweeters and four low-profile woofers. Two tweeters fire upward for the height layer, two use side-firing horns for width, and a forward-firing mid-tweeter is designed to create a smooth center image. Sonos describes the result as “true 7.1.2 Dolby Atmos.” That is a substantial architectural jump from the Beam (Gen 2), which Sonos rates as a virtualized 5.1.2 design.
Physical height drivers are the right move. But up-firing Atmos depends on placement and ceiling geometry.
The cabinet remains compact by soundbar standards, although it is no longer quite as tiny. Beam Ultra measures 29.53 inches wide versus 25.63 inches for Beam (Gen 2). Both weigh 6.35 pounds. The added width makes sense for better channel separation, but owners should measure first. The new $69 wall mount is model-specific, so an existing Beam mount is not reusable.
AI Speech Enhancement offers four intensity levels, compared with the simpler on-or-off enhancement on Beam (Gen 2). Night Sound remains available. Trueplay expands to Android for Quick Tuning, while Advanced Tuning remains iOS-only.
Connectivity expands to Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3 and optional USB-C line-in or Ethernet. “Optional” is doing work there: Ethernet and analog input require separately sold adapters, and the Beam Ultra optical adapter is a separate $25 purchase. Beam (Gen 2) has Ethernet built in and includes an optical adapter, practical advantages for some installations. Beam Ultra supports Sonos Voice Control and Amazon Alexa, but Sonos does not list Google Assistant, which remains listed for Beam (Gen 2).
Beam Ultra still has one HDMI eARC/ARC port and no HDMI passthrough. Lossless Dolby TrueHD Atmos and multichannel PCM require eARC; ARC can carry supported Dolby Digital Plus Atmos. DTS support stops at DTS Digital Surround, with no DTS:X listed. Beam Ultra also does not use the Sound Motion woofer technology found in the $1,099 Arc Ultra.
Sonos now has a four-step soundbar ladder: Ray at $219, Beam (Gen 2) at $499, Beam Ultra at $699 and Arc Ultra at $1,099. Beam Ultra looks like the meaningful choice for a smaller room where physical height effects and clearer dialogue matter, but the outgoing Beam is not actually outgoing. Beam Ultra costs about 40 percent more, leaving Beam (Gen 2) as the value play.
Ace Ultra closes more of the Sonos-system gap
The original Sonos Ace arrived in June 2024 as the company’s first headphone and an oddly separate member of the Sonos family. Its TV Audio Swap feature worked with compatible soundbars, yet it could not simply take over music playing elsewhere in a Sonos system.
Ace Ultra addresses that gap. Its new Headphone Linking feature can move Sonos-app playback between compatible Sonos products and the headphones over the home network. Sonos says the original Ace lacks the necessary hardware and will not receive the feature.
“Compatible” is not universal. Sonos’s published setup list does not include every current product and, on launch day, omits Beam Ultra, Move 2, Five and Port. That may be documentation lag, but buyers should verify their exact speakers rather than assume support.
Ace Ultra retains a custom 40 mm driver in each earcup but uses a new driver architecture. Ten microphones replace eight, Adaptive EQ compensates for fit variables such as hair and glasses, and the app offers either three-band or eight-band equalization. Adaptive ANC and an Aware mode with voice boost are included.
Sonos claims up to twice the noise cancellation of the original Ace, but the footnote matters: that comparison applies at frequencies up to 65 Hz, not across the audible spectrum. We will need comparative testing to know how much the improvement matters on an airplane, train or city street.
Rated battery life rises from 30 to 35 hours with ANC or Aware mode active, and Sonos lists up to 50 hours with those modes off. A three-minute charge provides up to three hours of playback. Better yet, the battery is replaceable with a $25 kit, although Sonos recommends installation by a skilled operator. The magnetic ear cushions are also replaceable and cost $39.
Ace Ultra supports lossless playback over USB-C or aptX Lossless with a compatible Bluetooth source, along with Dolby Atmos spatial audio and dynamic head tracking from compatible devices. Bluetooth advances from version 5.4 to 6.0. Weight rises slightly from 312 grams to roughly 322–325 grams—Sonos’s store page and product guide differ by three grams—and the color selection expands to black, soft white, Agave and Sand.
The original Ace is not obsolete. A 2025 update added TrueCinema, dual-listener TV Audio Swap, smarter ANC and improved call behavior to the first generation. Ace Ultra costs the same $449 that Ace did at launch.
Read the Headphone Linking fine print
Headphone Linking is the headline Ace Ultra feature, and it also launches as an Early Access feature with significant limitations. It is opt-in, provided as-is, and subject to change, limitation or temporary unavailability.
During a linked session, audio uses the SBC codec. Lossless and spatial audio are unavailable. Streams initiated through Bluetooth or AirPlay cannot be handed off, nor can direct-control sessions started in Spotify, Amazon Music, Pandora or TIDAL. Voice assistants are unavailable while linked, only one Ace Ultra link session can be active at a time, and at least one compatible Sonos product must remain active on the home network. Sonos also warns that a transfer can take five seconds or more and weak Wi-Fi can interrupt playback.
TV Audio Swap is separate. It remains the better-developed movie feature, works with both generations of Ace, and supports compatible Sonos soundbars including Arc, Arc SL, Arc Ultra, Beam, Beam (Gen 2), Beam Ultra and Ray. Two pairs of headphones can listen together, although head tracking is disabled in that mode.
Sonos 27 makes this a software story, too
The hardware arrives alongside Sonos 27, a broader update to the app and household audio system. A revised navigation design and support for using a matching pair of Move 2 or Sonos Play portable speakers as surrounds with Beam (Gen 2), Beam Ultra, Arc or Arc Ultra begin rolling out September 8; the portable speakers’ microphones must be enabled. Headphone Linking follows with Ace Ultra on September 29. Feature support varies by product. Both Ultra models require the current Sonos app and are incompatible with legacy S1 Controller systems.
Sonos’s May 2024 app relaunch removed functions, introduced reliability problems and triggered a public apology. The company later announced new quality commitments, and Patrick Spence left the CEO role in January 2025. Tom Conrad became permanent CEO that July.
Sonos says reliability has improved. This launch will test that claim in a way a specification sheet cannot. Beam Ultra depends on room tuning, dialogue processing and the app. Ace Ultra’s defining feature depends on the app, home network and other Sonos hardware behaving as one system.
The budget-minded verdict (for now)
Beam Ultra appears to be the more consequential hardware upgrade. Physical height drivers, broader dispersion, better dialogue control and Android Quick Tuning address clear limitations in Beam (Gen 2). Still, $699 is a serious price for a compact bar, and current Beam owners have no automatic reason to upgrade before independent room testing establishes the difference.
Ace Ultra asks only $50 more than the original Ace and adds longer battery life, expanded EQ, repairability and the one ecosystem feature Ace should arguably have had from the start. The catch is that Headphone Linking arrives in Early Access with enough restrictions to make waiting sensible for music-first buyers. Anyone outside an established Sonos household should compare it on sound quality and comfort alone.
Both products are available for preorder now and reach general availability September 29. For sure, the headline performance specifications are more ambitious.
