+1 @sonos please add support for Amp

Hmm, sorry, this was not supposed to become an answer to the question… Only tried adding weight to the question. I reported my message to Sonos to remove it as “answer”.

Hi @lathamspeas 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

Thank you - I've marked this thread as a feature request and it will be seen by the relevant teams for consideration. Keep the ideas coming!

Please note, however, that neither Playbar nor Playbase have the CPU or memory resources needed to support Ace. Amp I don’t have word on, but I will let you know once I find out. I suspect it is the same for Amp, though.

Thanks @Corry P . That gives some insight in the why of the no-support. It still would be an definitive buy of Ace for me if it would be Amp compatible (i understand it won't be Atmos). Now i'm not sure.

Hi @lathamspeas & @Vincent0 

I heard back - Amp does not have the resources to support Ace, so support for it will not be on the way. TV Audio Swap will be supported by Arc, Beam (both versions) and Ray only (and only by Arc at Ace’s product launch, the rest “soon”).

I hope this helps.

@Corry P , Forgive me if this is an ignorant question, but how can a Playbar, Playbase, or Amp connect to and communicate with two surround speakers and a subwoofer but is unable to connect to a single set of headphones?

I’m surprised the entry level Ray has some sort of resource capability that the others do not when it comes to communicating with a pair of headphones in this way.
 

In the same line of thought, how can the Play 5, Era 100 and 300 communicate with another speaker and subwoofer for line-in audio but not with a single pair of headphones? 

I have no inside knowledge, but it could be simple as bandwidth capability.  A sub and surrounds are 3 channels total.  To send 5.1 (never mind Atmos) to the Ace is 6 channels, double the bandwidth (and the front L/C/R are almost always a denser signal than the surrounds and sub).   And remember, all this data has to be low latency to synch with the video, which requires less transmission errors, so the cleaner the bandwidth, the better.

@jgatie I’m not assuming Atmos, as the Ray doesn’t have Atmos capability either, but even stereo sound shouldn’t be that much bandwidth compared to a sub and 2 surround speakers.
It just seems like an excuse to get people to buy their newer speakers for this functionality rather than using the capability of their older speakers, so now someone with a Playbar might consider buying a pair of headphones AND a new soundbar. 
 

I’m just trying to understand if there is truly something I’m not understanding about the hardware here that would cause these limitations, but at present it doesn’t seem like that should be the case. 

Sonos has no history of not allowing older devices access to newer functions in order to sell new units.  Alexa/Google support went back to the original ZP units from 2005, well over a decade old when Alex/Google Asst. were released. Playbar surrounds went back to the Play:3 (the first Sonos unit to have the 5 GHz radio required).  Sonos even jury rigged the ZP100 to be used as surrounds by hardwire.  Airplay 2 was released for all devices that could use it, including the original Beam.  I could go on and on, but I won’t.

@jgatie fair enough, even bringing the Playbar/Playbase over to S2 shows the continued support of older speakers, which perhaps is why this particular case seems strange to me. At present I just don't seem to understand how the surround/sub communication support differs wildly from the headphone communication, which is why I’m asking here about it. 

Hi @lathamspeas 

The older components are already pegged at close to their full capacity - they are simply incapable of doing the extra work that supporting Ace would require. Parts of the process are proprietary, so I can’t go into a lot of detail, but the soundbar involved is responsible for downmixing to binaural stereo while also encoding for virtual surround, and then arranging the spatial head-tracking adjustments too. It’s all very processor intensive - although Ray is smaller and cheaper than Playbar was, a decade is a long time in computing power advancement versus cost. Ray was also developed at the same time as Ace, so it makes sense that they were planned for one another.

I hope this helps.

But the Amp is current and still sold. Audio Swap will work with Beam Gen 1 (released 2017). Why not the amp (released 2018)? Is the amp at capacity?

Hi @Bumper 

To be honest, I don’t know. It hadn’t occurred to me that first gen Beam was older than Amp! Amp is the oldest design we still sell, however. Perhaps it was just given less compute to begin with - possibly because there is no voice support?

Many users will want to play surround in the main room and add ACE for a hard of hearing house member. This would involve processing two additional channels plus responding to setup and operational commands. Assuming that onboard processor resources were kept to the minimum required for the design goal and selling price, there is probably not enough extra capacity to support adding additional channels for ACE. 

It can be disheartening when you realize that your just completed design, not yet in production, is already obsolete compared to a design under development elsewhere and will follow your design into the marketplace in a few months. Of course, you could then eclipse that design very soon using yet to be released faster, cheaper components.

You face a similar dilemma as a purchaser. Knowing that “new improved” is only a few months away, should you wait? But, in a few months that “new improved” will probably on the road to obsolete before you purchase it.

At some point you and the manufacturer need to make a commitment, else the manufacturer does not have a business and you will never purchase a product.

Unless the feature changes, the Arc will be silent while it’s sending audio to the Arc.  It’s not sending processing it’s own audio or sending audio to subs or surrounds.  Perhaps it’s a matter of memory resources, since it would need to know how to do all these things, regardless of whether they need to be done simultaneously or not.

Or...you could get very good at selling your “no longer bleeding edge” speakers on the used market while you always get the latest and greatest on release day.  Some of users on here seem to have gotten pretty good results with that strategy.

I can sort of understand that the Amp might not be capable. But it's extra frustrating because it's still available and there is no Ace compatible alternative. For soundbars there are options that are Ace compatible, but for Amp there isn't. Or can we expect a new Amp with Ace support anytime soon?

(I've bought a Amp setup which isn't even delivered yet and was really looking forward to adding a Sonos compatible headphone to the setup)

Made a mistake beam was 2018, still a couple of months earlier than Amp though.

Ray, Arc, Beam Gen2 all share the same cpu (4 core Arm8). The Amp has a 4 core Arm7. Beam Gen 1 probably has the same CPU as Amp - it would be weird if it didn’t. So probably not due to an under powered CPU but who knows I guess.

Sonos has very long product cycles which isn’t a big deal, except the amp design is now ~6 years old which IMO Is very late in the product cycle even for Sonos. Might be better to wait for Amp Gen2.

It’s not unheard of for  Sonos  to release a Gen2 of product without changing anything other than the hardware (likely for more modern, cheaper parts) and new functionality that other speakers already have.

Oh dear. I pre-ordered the Ace and have had them a day now. I knew it was only the Arc that you can TV swap with for now, but I expected the Amp to be included in the future list. I tried the Arc but returned it as my Kef speakers and Amp have a much wider sound stage and sound better for music plus the virtual centre channel works great, vocals are clear and ‘centred’.

I only bought the Amp 6 months ago, and this won’t work with TV swap yet my Beam that is over 6 years old will. Looks like I will have to return the Ace’s 

My guess is the Amp doesn't have Bluetooth Low Energy which is required for the swapping process. It's the only theme I can recognise. Playbar doesn't have BLE, and it was first introduced in the Beam Gen 1. BLE would be involved with the swap temporarily comunicating with your phone. Head tracking might need it too, and certainly the TrueCinema tuning technology coming in a firmware update would need it too. I have the Amp and Ace. Would you send the Amp back in to Sonos for a hardware update for $100? I would. Would Sonos bother? No. Will there be a multichannel Amp Gen 2 out end of year for $3 grand plus range? Yes. Will it be compatible? You bet ya. The cheaper set top box should be compatible on the horizon too - so you will have to use this through your Amp - but means you have to forgo your smart tv software to choose to use it. Starts to get expensive and messy with alot of compromise. You would be doing the same process if you also had a Soundbar or set-top box borrowing the hdmi arc port to use instead of the Amp to get Ace to work. You could probably buy a hdmi switch box or better still the un-released set-top box will provide you this feature wireless if you wanted to have Soundbar and Amp both plugged in. All of this points towards buying four propertary Sonos products to make things work. ACE, Box, Soundbar and Amp. $$$$$$

Unsupported products

Currently, the Sonos app can update WiFi settings on Sonos products that are capable of using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). Some Sonos products don’t have BLE capabilities, so the Sonos app will not be able to discover them in order to update their WiFi network information. These products are:

• Connect (Gen 2)
• Connect:Amp (Gen 2)
• One (Gen 1)
• Play:1
• Play:3
• Play:5 (Gen 2)
• Playbar
• Playbase
• Sub (Gen 1)
• Sub (Gen 2)
• SYMFONISK Bookshelf (Gen 1)
• SYMFONISK Table lamp (Gen 1)

---My mistake - found a unrelated list which tells us Amp has ‘BLE’.----

Amp processor Quad Core 1.3Ghz A7 is the only resource which could be the difference for hardware compatiblity and Beam Gen 1 CPU isn’t published anywhere, anyone seen a tear down video and can report Beam Gen 1 CPU?