I received the items for my setup earlier today, but not in time to take with me on my hunt - still, I was amazed it was delivered on a Sunday at all!
I did do some quick backyard testing though, and I'm pleased with the results so far - I don't notice any latency at all using the Bluetooth transmitter coupled with the earbuds. Once I had everything paired and connected (which took no time - earbuds and transmitter paired very quickly), I turned on my Ace. I initially tested for any lag simply by pushing a few of the control box buttons - the Ace emits a tone every time a button is pushed. To my ear, the tones arrived in my earbuds virtually simultaneously with the button pushes.
Next I threw a couple quarters into the grass and swung. Tones again arrived with no detectable lag. Lastly, I went into pinpoint mode and found no latency at all. The tones arrived to the earbuds such that I was pinpointing the quarter exactly under the same spot of the coil as I was with the headphones.
I do have to admit, I don't like how the earbuds that I selected sound with the Ace - the tones are too tinny and harsh sounding for my tastes, and there really isn't any adjustment for that other than volume control. I tried them with my cell phone and listened to some music and they sound fine - kind of odd. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the Ace's volume is permanently set to wide open at the factory, I don't know.
So, out of curiousity I hooked up my other Anker earbuds which are older and I didn't think are AptX capable (Anker Soundbud Sport NB10,
http://a.co/aBuH5HE). I put them through the same tests, and got the exact same results in terms of lag or latency - absolutely none detectable to my ears! And even better, the sound of the tones was much improved. They are slightly more expensive at almost $40 bucks, so I guess it's not surprising that the sound quality was better - but I am surprised that there was no lag at all since the Sport earbuds aren't AptX capable.
So, either AptX doesn't really matter much, or maybe the Sport earbuds are AptX capable and they just aren't labeled for it? I'll call Anker's CS to find out for sure. Maybe the audio from the Ace is basic enough that there isn't really any compression to worry about and cause lag, so AptX doesn't matter?
Anyway, I'm very happy with the performance so far - I'll be going out for a full hunt tomorrow, so I should be able to give a final assessment after that. My only disappointment so far is that it looks like I could have saved myself the cost of the new earbuds, since it looks like my older ones will work better - the new ones supposedly have a much longer run time though, so we'll see. Maybe I'll get used to the sound quality in exchange for more hunting time
Either way, you can't beat going wireless for a tiny fraction of what Z-link would have cost!