Friday, September 3rd 2021
Qualcomm Adds Bluetooth Lossless Audio Technology to Snapdragon Sound
Qualcomm Technologies International, Ltd. today continued to demonstrate its vision and leadership in the wireless audio space with the introduction of Qualcomm aptX Lossless audio technology to its already extensive audio portfolio. aptX Lossless is a new capability of the proven aptX Adaptive technology and a new feature of Snapdragon Sound Technology that is designed to deliver CD quality 16-bit 44.1kHz lossless audio quality over Bluetooth wireless technology. Qualcomm Technologies has taken a systems level approach and optimized a number of core wireless connectivity and audio technologies, including aptX Adaptive, which work together to auto detect and scale-up and are designed to deliver CD lossless audio when a user is listening to a lossless music file and the RF conditions are suitable.
"At Qualcomm Technologies we're excited about the future of sound, and we're continually looking for ways to help our customers deliver new and exciting listening experiences. Lossless audio means mathematically bit-for-bit exact, with no loss of the audio file and up to now the necessary bit rate to deliver this over Bluetooth has not been available. With many leading music streaming services now offering extensive lossless music libraries, and consumer demand for lossless audio growing, we're pleased to announce this new support for CD lossless audio streaming for Bluetooth earbuds and headsets which we plan to make available to customers later this year," said James Chapman, vice president and general manager, Qualcomm Technologies International, Ltd.
To help deliver CD lossless audio quality reliably over Bluetooth wireless technology, aptX Adaptive works in conjunction with Qualcomm Bluetooth High Speed Link technology to help deliver the required sustainable data throughput. Designed to work seamlessly together, these technologies deliver rates beyond 1Mbit/s yet smoothly scale down to 140kbits/s in congested RF environments to minimize any audio dropouts or glitches for a consistent and reliable listening experience.
"Sound quality is the most critical purchase driver across all audio devices according to our 2021 State of Sound survey, which also shows increasing demand for higher quality streaming audio. Over half of respondents are seeking either lossless or high-resolution audio quality, and a massive 64% saying that lossless audio quality is likely to influence their decision to purchase wireless earbuds," Chapman continued. "Currently lossless audio is only supported on client devices such as phones, PCs and tablets. By supporting lossless audio on next-gen earbuds and headphones, we're providing our customers another way to deliver sound the way the artist intended, as well as a significant opportunity to differentiate and be among the first to develop products with this feature."
aptX Lossless features & specifications:
"At Qualcomm Technologies we're excited about the future of sound, and we're continually looking for ways to help our customers deliver new and exciting listening experiences. Lossless audio means mathematically bit-for-bit exact, with no loss of the audio file and up to now the necessary bit rate to deliver this over Bluetooth has not been available. With many leading music streaming services now offering extensive lossless music libraries, and consumer demand for lossless audio growing, we're pleased to announce this new support for CD lossless audio streaming for Bluetooth earbuds and headsets which we plan to make available to customers later this year," said James Chapman, vice president and general manager, Qualcomm Technologies International, Ltd.
"Sound quality is the most critical purchase driver across all audio devices according to our 2021 State of Sound survey, which also shows increasing demand for higher quality streaming audio. Over half of respondents are seeking either lossless or high-resolution audio quality, and a massive 64% saying that lossless audio quality is likely to influence their decision to purchase wireless earbuds," Chapman continued. "Currently lossless audio is only supported on client devices such as phones, PCs and tablets. By supporting lossless audio on next-gen earbuds and headphones, we're providing our customers another way to deliver sound the way the artist intended, as well as a significant opportunity to differentiate and be among the first to develop products with this feature."
aptX Lossless features & specifications:
- Supports 44.1kHz, 16-bit CD lossless audio quality
- Designed to scale-up to CD lossless audio based on Bluetooth link quality
- User can select between CD lossless audio 44.1kHz and 24-bit 96kHz lossy
- Auto-detects to enable CD lossless audio when the source is lossless audio
- Mathematically bit-for-bit exact
- Bit-rate - ~1Mbps
60 Comments on Qualcomm Adds Bluetooth Lossless Audio Technology to Snapdragon Sound
The last word was technical and not a chance for thread crapping with J.K. Rowling magic. Abito!
Good valves need frequent replacement if used a lot. Not that I'm bragging but I'm spending a good fortune on such things.
Excellent senses (hearing incl.) are both gift and a curse. Not that I'm complaining, though.
I however can't make a case for vinyl. I guess others can hear the discontinuity?:cool:
Despite aptX-HD and Bluetooth 5, this is still the case in 2021 because there’s supposedly not enough bandwidth. It means my new Momentum 3 headphones are only being used for mefia consumption and I’m back to a corded 3.5mm headset for quality.
The true use for this is to be able to stream e.g. from your phone to your DAC and amp on your nightstand. Then these beauties will in turn feed a potent earphones via cable.
Edit: it should be on anyone's bucket list to hear high-end electrostatic headphones at least once in their lifetime. It's a tear-shedding experience even for the most tone deaf people out there.No party is a real party without a good old turntable and a good DJ. I'm sick of spoiled mofos who abuse the cue button on their flashy digital deck... and call themselves a DJ.Vinyl records are a niche now. I've learnt to live with it. Even with a recent attempt for a comback you can't find many things on a vinyl.
Also, no matter how good of a care you are taking for your vinyls they ultimately deteriorate over consecutive plays.
Good digital codecs are a good alternative still, but they still can't capture the finest details and the overall soundstage. Oh, well.
www.discogs.com/label/326989-Original-Master-Recording
www.selby.com.au/brands/mobile-fidelity/dire-straits-mobile-fidelity-vinyl-record-bundle-900705.htmlBITD the neighbours had 8-Track for the car and Reel to Reel tape for indoor. When my FM station started playing CD recordings I was hooked. However, some high-end audio/videophile stuff is just crazy.
Let me sell you gold plated 1 metre HDMI 2.1 cords for $7,000 USD each?
Thank God he didn't want his name engraved on them! :D
Rich people and their *shuffles deck* ...Hi-Fi requirements.
I'm not the audiophile by any stretch of the imagination, any 24/96 audio I find I just downrate it to 16/44 because I'm not really capable nor do I intend to have the equipment for and it's just wasted space on the hard drive for me. I'm very happy with my soundcard and my earphones and I go ldac with wh1000xm3 outdoors, which are very high end for the vast majority of the people and they do get impressed when I let them try my stuff, but any human bat on an audio forum just would treat it like a plebeian thing. I still find very noticeable flaws on the 320kbps codecs.There is also the fact that tons of old records are getting remastered at neck breaking pace and the difference is night and day. I recently bought the Tubular Bells 2009 remaster and it sounds like another different record compared to the old, even the 2000 remaster, you can hear the actual studio when the old was like there is a "sound mist" all over it. We tend to romantizice a lot of the old stuff and simply things are just much better now on the quality side, analog or digital. Any soundcloud trap kid can do things now that would revolutionize music 50 years ago.
It's true that sometimes you feel strange, listening to the old Primus stuff compared to the remasters sometimes feel weird for it to sound on decent quality when they even made named an album based on how their stuff used to be mastered like shit.
That's the advancement. This is the first wireless lossless to my knowledge.
It is true more sound can be represented in a higher khz tape, but that has to be the good kind, not the deafness corrected kind. More pitch is not always more music, imo.
1-4 kHz has a lot more audio when compared to 16-20kHz which have the same data, but much less audio representation. I bet people who have phones cannot verifiably state they can discriminate the headphones, or the mono speaker of the phone apart from the volume.