compatibility sonos arc ultra & turntable pro ject T1 EVO BT

Hi ​@frenchfredolyon and ​@Corry P 

I have been researching a similar topic and I was wondering if you had confirmed what has been written above.

From my understanding, the project T1 EVO BT will send a BT 5.0 aptX HD

https://www.project-audio.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/T1-EVO-EN.pdf

Regarding the Ultra, i can read from the Sonos documentation : Bluetooth 5.3 supports audio streaming from any Bluetooth-enabled device.

But… according to PCMAG, the Sonos Arc Ultra has only basic codecs (AAC and SBC)

source : https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/sonos-arc-ultra

Do you have confirmation that it will work with the Ultra? 

Hi ​@BobbyAxelrod 

Thanks for your post!

Good question!

I spent a silly amount of time trying to find out for you by looking through the documentation and ended up asking for those details for all of our Bluetooth-equipped players to be added to the page that listed codecs for the Ace headphones. More time was then spent trying to understand if it was a bandwidth question and I started looking into Bluetooth documentation.

Eventually, my Eureka moment was connecting my phone to my own Arc Ultra and seeing what codecs my phone would allow me to select! SBC and AAC were the only codecs not greyed-out. As happy as Larry, I got as far as typing AAC and figured I had better double check with my Ace headphones. So, I disconnected Ultra and connected Ace and found only AAC available, though Ace definitely supports AptX. It seems that although AptX is listed in the codecs list in the developer options of my phone, it does not actually support it (I verified this with a quick search).

So, I am forced back to the documentation, and waiting for the people who I can ask to come back to work tomorrow - I will keep this thread open in a chrome tab so I remember to continue this quest!

If anyone reading this has a Pro-Ject T1 EVO BT and an Arc Ultra, please see if you can get them working with each other. 

Edit: Please note that even if Arc Ultra does not support AptX, that does not mean that the two devices will not work with each other - the turntable will likely fall-back to SBC or AAC.

Thanks ​@Corry P I’ll wait for additional feedback. Your edit regarding a potential fallback to SBC or AAC is source of hope!

I guess your question to the community can be expanded to products like the Project Phono Box BT5

https://www.project-audio.com/en/product/phono-box-e-bt5/

which has the following BT specs : V5.2, aptX, aptX Adaptive, aptX HD

Best regards

Hi ​@BobbyAxelrod 

Thank you for your patience.

I heard back about our enquiry today - Arc Ultra does not support AptX, and nor can it - it doesn’t have the right kind of radio chipset to do so. Sonos Ace is the only Sonos product that supports AptX at time of writing.

However, as mentioned, I don’t think that will prevent it from working with your turntable. The Project-Audio page you linked to mentioned AptX for high definition listening, but did not state that only AptX is supported - I think it safe to say it will fall-back to a “lesser” codec where AptX is not available. You would need to ask them to be sure, however. The turntable PDF is a little less clear, but I again think they are just listing AptX as a selling point.

I hope this helps.

Thank you ​@Corry P for following up.

I will ask Project and post their reply if I get one…

Best regards to all

Hi all,

just got a feedback from pro-ject (copied below, in french, sorrry):

in short: yes, Pro-ject BT will fallback to AAC and SBC but he cannot guarantee that there won’t be pairing issues with the Ultra.

As ​@Corry P said, if anyone has a Pro-ject device sending audio via Bluetooth to an Arc Ultra, it would be great to hear if it works!

Thank you all

Et merci pour votre message ainsi qu’à l’intérêt porté à nos produits !

Pour vous répondre, oui les platines et préamplificateur phono Bluetooth de la marque Pro-Ject ont une rétrocompatibilité vers les codecs AAC & SBC.

En revanche, il se peut que le mode de pairage soit propriétaire sur l’enceinte. Je m’explique, n’ayant pas de clavier, certaines enceintes requièrent de rentrer un mot de passe pour faire le premier appairage (sur un téléphone ou un ordinateur par exemple), et comme je ne connais pas bien le produit Sonos Arc ultra, je ne puis vous dire avec certitude si cela va fonctionner ou si elle possède un pairage similaire.

Nous nous efforçons de rentre compatibles nos produits avec le plus grand nombre d’enceintes ou de récepteurs BT du marché, mais nous ne pouvons pallier ce genre de pairage propriétaire.

Nous avons quelques exemples qui posent problème lors de l’appairage comme :

• La Devialet Mania, mais fonctionne bien sur les Phantom I & II
• Les barres de Son BOSE ou JBL, alors que leurs enceintes nomades fonctionnent

Notez que nous avions essayé par le passé avec une grande partie de la gamme actuelle de Sonos et que cela fonctionnait très bien.

Aussi, et si vous décidez de franchir le pas, je serais intéressé par votre retour, sur le fonctionnement et la comptabilité inter-marque de ces produits !