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.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:
- 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
Don't mind me dissing on poor quality journalistic junk. I hate laymen articles.
Even Billie our dog got involved in the mocking. This is on Australian Fathers' Day. I was just about to post and then my evil sister rang and joined in on the general shaming. o_O
I am fairly sure you guys can complete the job. The printer is whirring and an arrow is being printed to remind me which way is up.
As technology continues to evolve, we may one day be able to discard audio cables. Please come while I'm still alive.
www.dpreview.com/news/7851957362/the-red-v-raptor-st-is-a-25k-cinema-camera-capable-of-8k-120fps-16-bit-raw-video-capture
Uncompressed CD audio is exactly 1.411Mbps, flac at around 0.9. They state that this one is about 1, well within the btle usable 1.3Mbps limit.
96kHz/24bit is compressed using a lossy codec, which you would know if you read the qualcomm release. Only 16 bit 44kHz material is supported for this bit perfect codec, and only in good rf conditions.
- Silk purse ... sow's ear
- The etymology of the word: public.
I am sure you get the point. :cool:For higher end formats, there needs to be some other use than just consumption for them to make sense. For atmos, that applies as the atmos amps do a shit ton of processing in order to do room corrections etc. For music you wish to hear simply ’as is’, higher bitrates and sampling frequencies just get in the way.
some people claim to hear more than is possible to deliver with CD quality, but I’ve yet to see a proper blind test of that, where the results would be favorable to the claimant.
BUT, unless you have decent, quality speakers, with very high range, you are correct, you won't distinguish a thing.
In the test, the lower bitrate audio clip needs to be produced directly from the high bitrate clip using best practices for downsampling, and the test needs to be a double blind one. Dac used needs to be run at the same bitrate for both clips, with the lower bitrate clip upsampled using best practices on the source device. Otherwise the DAC may be the piece in the signal chain that produces differing outputs.
In many cases music files released at higher bitrates are also mastered differently to any lower bitrate version of the same piece, which explains most of the people who claim to hear the difference.
I currently don't have access to the right University Library.
dosits.org/science/measurement/how-is-hearing-measured/
For example, people hear best in the frequency range of speech because it is most important for us as apex predators to hear and understand one another.
My clan is the apex predator of apex predators.
You stating that 16bits is not enough, should mean that you can discern differences in volume smaller than what 16bits can differentiate between, correct? 0.1 dB is a much larger difference in volume than what a single value difference is in 16 bit recordings.
What score do you get from these two tests? :) Both are well within what 16 bit recordings can do, and the real limits are way, way smaller.
www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_level.php?lvl=0.1
www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_dynamic.php?dyna=78
There is also a 16 bit vs 8 bit blind test on the site, but I guess that is way too easy for you:
www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_16vs8bit.php No-one has. That's the problem when trying to find a study that proves the impossible. Or, just possibly, apex sheep? :P
My maternal grandfather used to say: Don't
- run upstairs, or
- back odds on.
I can hear the difference enough for it to be material to me personally. It is a perception matter.If you like placebo, that is up to you, but don't push your imaginary listening powers as a fact unless you can back it up.
So I decided to open spotify, which is also lossy (but a different codec at a higher bitrate,) and played the same song and it does sound better. Bass and mids sound similar, but the highs are noticeably more crisp off of the version spotify has, and I don't even need my flat response headphones and a dac to hear it either. Once again though, I think that has more to do with the bitrate and codec than it does with the depth of the samples.
So I agree with you in the sense that most people can't hear the difference, particularly between 16-bit and 24-bit or north of 48Khz. The problem is that the test itself is flawed and 8-bit vs 16-bit on a lossless codec is a different thing than on a lossy codec which doesn't natively support 8-bit. I think what you'd find is that a good quality audio sample comparing 8-bit and 16-bit on a lossless codec from a lossless source is going to yield different results than using vorbis. However, I don't think it will be an extreme difference, but I do think it'll be perceivable.
8bit vs. 16bit is for sure perceivable with a more dynamic song even with a lossy codec, with lossless further expanding the gap. That comparison is more or less just to prove a point that to imagine going above 16 would provide some benefit is just silly. All it does is lower the noise floor below -96dB and hardly anyone listens at their listening rooms noise floor + 96 dB, because they would lose their hearing pretty damn quickly. With 8 bit the noise floor is very audible, at -48dB, which you can try to hear here: www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_dynamic.php?dyna=48
(Should be pretty easy).
For consumption though (as is the case with the aptX lossless), it does not make sense at all to deliver at higher than CD quality. Surround is of course good if you like it, and lossless a mandatory thing IMO.