Sonos announced both products on 1 September, US time, alongside a new version of its software it is calling Sonos 27. Pre-orders opened the same day on sonos.com and at selected retailers, with general availability on 29 September. Sonos says that date applies everywhere.

Beam Ultra

The Beam has always been the compact soundbar in the Sonos range, the one that suits a normal lounge room TV rather than a home cinema. The Beam Gen 2 claimed Dolby Atmos but did it with processing tricks, because it had no upward-firing drivers. The Beam Ultra fixes that. Sonos lists nine custom drivers, including two dedicated up-firing ones, and calls the result true 7.1.2 Dolby Atmos.

There is a redesigned centre channel for dialogue, four levels of AI Speech Enhancement, and a Night Sound mode for when the kids are asleep and you still want to watch something with explosions in it. It connects over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and HDMI eARC.

One detail I like: Sonos says compatible portable speakers can now act as rear surrounds. That is covered in the Sonos 27 write-up, but in practice it means a Sonos Play or Move 2 you already own can become the back channels for movie night without buying a dedicated pair.

Sonos Ace Ultra

The original Ace launched in 2024 and the big promise was that it would link into your Sonos system. That mostly did not happen. The Ace Ultra is built around new hardware Sonos calls Headphone Engine 2, and the headline feature is headphone linking: one press pushes whatever is playing on your speakers into the headphones, another press sends it back, no phone required in range.

Sonos lists a Sonos-designed 40mm driver, Adaptive ANC using ten microphones, and up to 35 hours of battery with noise cancelling on. There is USB-C and a 3.5mm jack alongside Bluetooth. Trueplay tunes the Beam Ultra to your room, and TrueCinema does a similar job for the headphones when they are pulling sound from a compatible soundbar.

Headphone linking ships as an Early Access feature, which is Sonos's way of saying it is out but still being finished. Given how the 2024 app relaunch went, I would treat that label seriously.

Australian pricing

Sonos's own announcement only gives US pricing: US$699 for the Beam Ultra and US$449 for the Ace Ultra. Australian tech outlets Pickr, GadgetGuy and Press Start are all reporting the same local numbers, $1,099 for the Beam Ultra and $699 for the Ace Ultra, with the 29 September date. I could not find those prices on a Sonos Australia page at the time of writing, so treat them as widely reported rather than confirmed by Sonos directly. If they are right, the Beam Ultra sits about $300 above where the Beam Gen 2 has been selling, and the Ace Ultra is around $100 above the current Ace.

Sonos has not said whether the Beam Gen 2 or the original Ace are being discontinued.