The SonoFlow are comfortable noise-canceling over-ear headphones from 1More, a young company that has built some great-sounding, high-value wired and wireless earbuds over the past few years. The SonoFlow are significantly less expensive than our favorite noise-canceling headphones (they cost a third or even a quarter as much as our top over-ear headphone picks) but manage to deliver impressive sound and noise-canceling performance along with incredible battery life.
They may not compete with the current state-of-the-art flagships on every count, and they don’t have the luxurious substantial feel of the top-of-the-line models, but they deserve a serious look if you’re a budget-minded listener.
The 1More SonoFlow wireless over-ear headphones sound better and have more effective noise-canceling than anything we've tested at this low price. If you want all of these features on a budget, look no further.
What we liked about it
Out of the box, the SonoFlow’s voicing is more midrange-focused than from some of the flagship headphones we’ve heard recently, such as the Sony XM5 or AirPods Max, with less weight and extension in the bass and less sparkle on top. They sound a little more like a desktop speaker, with less of a sense of depth and air than top-of-the-line models. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, however, and while the SonoFlow are not for bassheads by any stretch of the imagination, they have a mannered, balanced sound that suits a lot of acoustic and pop material just fine.
The SonoFlow’s midrange is impressively smooth — voices and horns sound great here, from Joni Mitchell’s gut-wrenching vocal on “The Sire of Sorrow” (from “Turbulent Indigo”) to Ornette Coleman’s fiery saxophone on “Endangered Species” (from “Song X”). The SonicFlow support Sony’s LDAC hi-res format on Android devices, giving them some audiophile cred (though there’s no AptX support for high-quality plain-vanilla Bluetooth streaming, an unfortunate omission).
Bass may not be overwhelming, but it’s tight and well controlled. The sub-bass and kick drum on Mos Def’s “Rock N Roll” (from “Black on Both Sides”) may not envelop you in a cloud of low-end, but it has tons of impact.
The 1More app lets you tailor the EQ to taste. You get a dozen presets, plus you can save your own EQ choices using the 10 band graphic EQ — more granular control than we saw in any other headphone we tested. It’s easy to get a sound suitable for whatever material you’re listening to, with some limitations. Boosting the bass, for instance, didn’t buy us a lot of low-end extension — the mild-mannered basic character of the SonoFlow remains however you adjust them.
Bluetooth range is impressive. We were able to make a full circuit of our lath-and-plaster home and listen or speak on calls without any dropouts, at least equivalent to what we were able to do with the AirPods Max.
Noise cancellation is very effective considering the low price of these headphones. The effect isn’t as pronounced as Sony’s or as natural-sounding as Bose’s, but it did a great job toning down our exhaust fan and air conditioning in our testing. In addition, the app offers a selection of “soothing sounds” — a crackling fire, rain, etc. — that might be useful for relaxation (or getting to sleep on a noisy train or plane), giving you extra tools to shut out the world even if you aren’t listening to music.
Battery life is impressive — we went a whole week of workdays at reasonable listening levels without charging and never got a battery low warning. 1More claims 50 hours with ANC on, and that is borne out by our own use. Should you run out, fast charging means you get 5 additional hours of playback from a five-minute charge.
What we didn’t like about it
Construction quality just isn’t as good as the flagships from Sony or Apple or Bowers & Wilkins — but those headphones sell for three to four times as much, so it’s understandable. They’re plasticky and the headband padding is minimal —?it’s pleasant enough, but not as comfortable to wear all day or as confidence-inspiring over the long term. We’ll keep an eye on our sample pair to see how they wear.
The SonoFlow don’t have a wear sensor or any sort of positional awareness, so they don’t automatically stop playback on your source device when you take them off. This isn’t the end of the world (and it also means they don’t accidentally stop playback as you move around or reposition an earcup for comfort), but we’ve gotten used to this behavior on more expensive models and missed it here.
The interface elements aren’t as refined as we might like. Button placement is a little confusing: the power/pairing switch is on the front of the right earcup, which is convenient enough, but far from the indicator LED. In addition, even though several important functions do get physical buttons (which we really like), adding one or two more would have avoided hiding other features behind multiple button presses or taps.
While you can listen to the SonoFlow wired, you can’t use ANC at the same time. It appears that the external mics aren’t enabled in this mode to make cancellation possible.
Bottom line
Lightweight and relatively inexpensive, the 1More SonoFlow are a great buy for travelers, for work-from-home or hybrid workers who want a pair to leave at the office, or even as a pair for school. There’s nothing else we’ve heard priced this low that sounds as good or offers you as much flexibility.
