If you’ve been holding on to the highly anticipated Sonos headphones, your patience could soon be rewarded: the wireless audio giant has dropped a strong hint that its rivals Bose and Sony will land in October.
In a Feb. 6 earnings call for Sonos 2024 (transcribed by The Motley Fool), company CEO Patrick Spence teased that “we are just months away from announcing our highly anticipated new product in a multi-billion dollar category, which will be the first will be an important milestone in our multi-year product cycle.”
While not too specific about the product or release period, Spence added that this product cycle will involve entering “new categories” and launching new products “starting with the ones we’ll announce in the third quarter and send. “.
A Q3 release means sometime between July and September. And while we’re not sure if this launch will be for the Sonos headphones, it does line up with the latest rumors and the company’s previous hints about a headphone launch in the “second half” of 2024.
Last year, Bloomberg reported on a leaked memo showing that Sonos already had a dedicated headphones team, which had apparently been working on headphones for “more than four years.”
That leak suggested Sonos is also working on new home products and voice control technology, while we also expect to see a Sonos Arc 2 in 2024. But it looks like Sonos’ new headphones could also challenge for a spot in our guide for the best wireless headphones in a few months.
Worth waiting for?
Rumors about Sonos headphones have been circulating since early 2019. Considering there are already some excellent wireless headphones on the market, from the Sony WH-1000XM4 to the Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless, it might seem strange that there’s still so much excitement. about Sonos entering the space – but there are good reasons for that.
First, there’s the obvious fact that Sonos is still one of the most respected and popular audio technology brands out there. But the hype is also rooted in some concrete details, such as Sonos’ acquisition of Mayht in 2022, a Dutch company that developed a new type of speaker design. That technology, called ‘HeartMotion’, apparently delivers similar audio power to a pair of speakers, just in a much smaller package.
It seems likely that Sonos will integrate some of this technology into its rumored headphones – and on paper, these ingredients could certainly create some of the best noise-cancelling headphones around.
As we discussed in our round-up of the four things we want from Sonos headphones, there’s a lot of potential beyond just sound quality – including audio transfer with your Sonos speakers and advanced ANC (active noise cancellation) with spatial audio tricks. So if you’re looking for a pair of premium wireless headphones, it might be worth waiting a few months to see what Sonos has in store.