Using ARC sound bar with ACE

There have been some users on the forum who have been incorrectly stating that Ace are just BT headphones as means of expressing their disappointment.  That seems to have contributed to some confusion as to what the headphones can actually do...although the some what complex nature and feature set of Ace doesn’t help either.  Ace can only be used with WiFi in the rather limited use case of  being bonded to an Arc for  TV audio only, and every other use case has to be done through a bluetooth connection.

Yes. That is true, however what a lot of people here are saying is that Sonos had an opportunity to do so so much more with these headphones and separate themselves from the rest of the market (a competitive one at that, and instead (I could use a lot of euphemisms here but instead I will just say) came up short and took the easy way out. I am about as diehard a Sonos fan as they come (I even own stock for the sake of supporting them not to “get rich”) and while everything on the outside (design and general capabilities) is a hit out of the park the nuances and software and overall functuality and uniqueness is more like a strike out.

I think the big disconnect between Sonos and users is that the Ace appears to have been created as a) bluetooth headphones and b) for Sonos home theatre TV users for  full ‘immersive’ experience.

The rest (= most?) of us who use Sonos for distributing music throughout their homes are left disappointed.

Having the phones enabled as a ‘room’ would allow Ace ‘rooms’ to be grouped with the TV room, and allow aged Ps to have the volume as high as they liked without disturbing the neighbours, and allow external use of the Ace like a Move also without disturbing the neighbours. Communal listening would still be done via the standard players.

(** Correction - Aged Ps would have to use independent Ace ‘rooms’ to allow for independent volume levels, but with the TV source redirected to each of them. That might cause latency issues, but my parents had their own latency issues between hearing and understanding...).

The Ace can be used as bluetooth headphones connected to a phone - but there is no way of allowing Sonos input to be directed to the Ace via the phone. If only there was a way for a phone to act as a Sonos player (instead of just a controller)...

The limitations of Arc setup only via IOS vs Android is risible. I’m a PC user and am still smarting that I suddenly needed a Smart phone controller to set up my considerable Sonos investment correctly when S2 came in (I think). Why is the Windows controller limited functionality? I fully understand the need for a phone or tablet to be used as a wandering microphone for TruePlay tuning purposes, though.

I’m not disappointed - the Ace apparently has the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon Sounds Apt-X ‘lossless’ Bluetooth audio chip, according to this media article:

https://www.whathifi.com/advice/sonos-ace-vs-airpods-max-what-are-the-differences

The audio quality capabilities are shown here:

The article states the Ace also supports Apples ‘lossless’ ALAC codec.

So Ace is undoubtedly going to sound great anyway. The TV ‘swap’ feature will be helpful in my own case as I have to disable Simplink (CEC protocol) on my LG TV to get the TV audio onto headphones and from what I’ve read so far it can now all be done with a long press on the ‘content’ button on the headphones (I assume it will also swap back to the TV with a second long press too) - so that’s going to make things much easier. 

Sonos hardware always sounds good to my ears anyway, so I’m looking forward to hearing and seeing how Ace works with our Sonos Arc and various music Apps and Bluetooth Transceivers we have around the Home, two of which are linked into Sonos (analog) line-in and (digital) line-out ports too.

Let’s ask the simple question. Can Sonos Ace and Sonos Arc be active at the same time from the same input source (ie TV) ?

If yes, great!

If no, why be like everyone else?

I believe this has been asked and answered.

That’s a question Sonos hasn’t answered.

Maybe I missed it but I did not see a response from Sonos.

in this thread:

https://en.community.sonos.com/product%2Dupdates/the%2Dlong%2Dawaited%2Dfirst%2Dheadphones%2Dsonos%2Dace%2D6894915

 @Corry P (from Sonos) answered:

Only if Ace is playing from a Bluetooth source. If playing Arc’s audio, Arc will not play too.

Never a simple definitive answer.

Tv sound is playing on the Arc. Can the Ace play the same Tv sound as the Arc.

guessing that is a no else Sonos would announce that no one else does this.

As per today's email, Sonos are no longer marketing the Arc 'TV Audio Swap' functionality as a feature. It wouldn't surprise me at all if this particular function gets canned before launch: