Qualcomm Adds Bluetooth Lossless Audio Technology to Snapdragon Sound

[Tardian]

What the heck is ligma?

I think I said 5 sigma, meaning 5 SD from the mean. As already discussed my clan is really mean. For those who are translating to other languages, this pun will require extra effort.

LIGMA is part of the BOFA spectrum of conditions. LIGMA (Loose Internal Gene Mi-Asintits) is the second stage of BOFA (Biologically Offset Farkwonian Asintits). In this stage, the disease interferes with the immune system and increases the risk of developing common infections such as tuberculosis. Given the weakened immune system, many of the patients, such as popular Fortnite streamer Ninja, die on this stage of the Biologically Offset Farkwonian Asintits (BOFA). It is also the last treatable stage. Although not effective, there are treatments to LIGMA: LIGMA-BALLS (Bi-Asonurdick Lateral Lactatioustits Sequence) that, even though it's experimental, have shown some promise. With stopping the spread of BOFA at the LIGMA stages, it can stop patients from going into the third and final phase of the BOFA sequence: E-TMA (Entrenched Terminal Mi-Asintits)
"RIP Ninja. At least he died of Ligma and not E-TMA"
"Yea. Did he at least try the LIGMA-BALLS procedure?"
by User80085 July 20, 2018

Urban Dictionary: LIGMA

LIGMA is part of the BOFA spectrum of conditions. LIGMA (Loose Internal Gene Mi-Asintits) is the second stage of BOFA (Biologically Offset Farkwonian Asintits). In this stage, the disease interferes with the immune system and increases the risk of developing common infections such as...

www.urbandictionary.com

They are yelling at me to get off the computer.

 

[mtcn77]

I think I said 5 sigma

The scientific term is "Pearson Correlation" rather than a teabag pun, imo. It is interesting not once it is named correctly within the 'freelance' article.
Don't mind me dissing on poor quality journalistic junk. I hate laymen articles.

 

[Tardian]

The scientific term is "Pearson Correlation" rather than a teabag pun, imo. It is interesting not once it is named correctly within the 'freelance' article.
Don't mind me dissing on poor quality journalistic junk. I hate laymen articles.

One can't understand time dilation unless one has had the pleasure of sitting an MS101 Introduction to Statistics lecture. Listening to my significant other's monologue makes MS101 seem like a Wayne the Rock Johnston action movie after taking cocaine. Before any of you think you can troll me, I just had the pleasure of 'losing' at Hand, Knee, & Foot (cards) to my significant other and youngest son's team. Losing included having my arse handed to me on a plate and being mocked as disabled. In fact, they eventually ran out of disabled puns and nearly wet themselves laughing. I told you before about infinite black.
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.

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.

 

[minami]

In the extreme, 24Hz video is acceptable. But audio with a sampling rate of 24Hz is completely unacceptable. Even if it is 24KHz.
As technology continues to evolve, we may one day be able to discard audio cables. Please come while I'm still alive.

 

[Aquinus]

Huh, okay. It's probably not low power bluetooth. There simply isn't enough bandwidth to drive a lossless codec, so I don't see battery life being ideal wireless headphones. I guess that's a tradeoff.

down to 140kbits/s in congested RF

While remaining lossless? Sure.

 

[Tardian]

In the extreme, 24Hz video is acceptable. But audio with a sampling rate of 24Hz is completely unacceptable. Even if it is 24KHz.

Huh, who mentioned 24KHz?

CD lossless audio 44.1kHz and 24-bit 96kHz lossy

BTW 24fps might suit old-school cinema folk. The future is more like 120fps.

The RED V-RAPTOR ST is a $25K cinema camera capable of 8K 120fps 16-bit Raw video capture

The V-RAPTOR ST is the first camera in RED's new DSMC3 generation of cameras and packs inside a 35.4MP CMOS sensor (8192 x 4320 pixels) capable of capturing over 17 stops of dynamic range.

www.dpreview.com

 

[Dredi]

While remaining lossless? Sure.

If you read the release, you’ll know that it is lossless only in good rf conditions. In bad rf conditions it switches to use some completely different (lossy) codec.

It's probably not low power bluetooth.

BTLE goes up to 2Mbps. That is well enough for this application. For sure it uses more power than some lower bitrate transfer, but it still is classified as BT low energy.

 

[Aquinus]

BTLE goes up to 2Mbps. That is well enough for this application. For sure it uses more power than some lower bitrate transfer, but it still is classified as BT low energy.

Over the air under perfect conditions. Even in that case it's more like ~1.3Mbps that's usable. That's not a whole lot of bandwidth for handling lossless audio. Let's consider existing lossless codecs, where there is an upper bound to how much you can compress audio data without losing something from it. Even FLAC and ALAC have similar file sizes for what it's storing and it's pretty consistent with others as well. At 16-bit 44.1Khz you're basically at about 1.4Mbps with FLAC (which is one of the better codecs when it comes to lossless compression,) which puts you right at the upper end of the usable range for BTLE. All in all, I honestly don't see how it can be both lossless and be using low energy at the same time. Normal BT probably could do it as it's usable bandwidth is something a bit over 2Mbps short of going into 802.11 land like the faster BT variants. I think that it's far more realistic for it to be over normal BT and that the stars would have to align for there to be lossless quality over BTLE given what we know about existing lossless codecs.

 

[Dredi]

Over the air under perfect conditions. Even in that case it's more like ~1.3Mbps that's usable. That's not a whole lot of bandwidth for handling lossless audio. Let's consider existing lossless codecs, where there is an upper bound to how much you can compress audio data without losing something from it. Even FLAC and ALAC have similar file sizes for what it's storing and it's pretty consistent with others as well. At 16-bit 44.1Khz you're basically at about 1.4Mbps with FLAC (which is one of the better codecs when it comes to lossless compression,) which puts you right at the upper end of the usable range for BTLE. All in all, I honestly don't see how it can be both lossless and be using low energy at the same time. Normal BT probably could do it as it's usable bandwidth is something a bit over 2Mbps short of going into 802.11 land like the faster BT variants. I think that it's far more realistic for it to be over normal BT and that the stars would have to align for there to be lossless quality over BTLE given what we know about existing lossless codecs.

They do state that it is bit perfect, so it probably does work.
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.

 

[Aquinus]

They do state that it is bit perfect, so it probably does work.
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.

That doesn't sound like BTLE though, particularly if they're supporting up to 96Khz/24-bit. Not to mention this little statement.

aptX Adaptive works in conjunction with Qualcomm Bluetooth High Speed Link technology to help deliver the required sustainable data throughput.

 

[Dredi]

That doesn't sound like BTLE though, particularly if they're supporting up to 96Khz/24-bit.

Whether it _sounds_ like BTLE is a bit moot point. It explicitly supports 2Mbps (1.3Mbps usable) data rate. Non LE BT supports 3Mbps and that is not necessary in order to send the audio codec in question. ”Qualcomm bluetooth high speed link technology” is just some marketing name, and I nor you have any idea what it actually uses. I suppose we are not interested enough to find out either.

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.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Hardly impressive from a lossless 32 bit, 192KHz , or Dolby Atmos....

 

[Tardian]

Hardly impressive from a lossless 32 bit, 192KHz , or Dolby Atmos....

I'm torn between:

• Silk purse ... sow's ear
• The etymology of the word: public.

I am sure you get the point.

 

[Dredi]

Hardly impressive from a lossless 32 bit, 192KHz , or Dolby Atmos....

Almost no music exists that goes beyond the 16bit/44kHz quality. And you simply cannot hear even the full 16bits of dynamic range anyway.

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.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Almost no music exists that goes beyond the 16bit/44kHz quality. And you simply cannot hear even the full 16bits of dynamic range anyway.

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.

Trust me, there is a clear difference between 16bit/44kHz and 24bit/96kHz. I'm talking from experience. There are a lot of music samples out there.
BUT, unless you have decent, quality speakers, with very high range, you are correct, you won't distinguish a thing.

 

[Tardian]

Trust me, there is a clear difference between 16bit/44kHz and 24bit/96kHz. I'm talking from experience. There are a lot of music samples out there.
BUT, unless you have decent, quality speakers, with very high range, you are correct, you won't distinguish a thing.

The average person can't hear a difference. I can't play a note and can't sing but have pitch-perfect hearing, and there is a clear difference between 16bit/44kHz and 24bit/96kHz and no I have good but not expensive speakers. B05e is rubbish IME.

 

[Dredi]

Trust me, there is a clear difference between 16bit/44kHz and 24bit/96kHz. I'm talking from experience. There are a lot of music samples out there.
BUT, unless you have decent, quality speakers, with very high range, you are correct, you won't distinguish a thing.

The average person can't hear a difference. I can't play a note and can't sing but have pitch-perfect hearing, and there is a clear difference between 16bit/44kHz and 24bit/96kHz and no I have good but not expensive speakers. B05e is rubbish IME.

Trust me, you can’t. Prove me wrong by posting any well made test where the result is as you claim it to be. You simply stating that you can hear a difference means very little.

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.

 

[Tardian]

Trust me, you can’t. Prove me wrong by posting any well made test where the result is as you claim it to be. You simply stating that you can hear a difference means very little.

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.

What you state, in theory, makes perfect sense, but in practice, I can notice the difference. There is a wide range in human perception outcomes.

I currently don't have access to the right University Library.

How is hearing measured?

Hearing is an important sense for most animals. However, all animals do not hear all sounds. For example, people can't hear the sound a dog whistle makes, but dogs can hear that sound. Most marine mammals can hear sounds that people can't hear. What sounds we, or a marine animal, can hear...

dosits.org

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.

 

[Dredi]

I can notice the difference

Let’s play a game then, assuming that you mean the difference as in audio quality and not in mastering.

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.

Blind Testing a 0.1 dB Level Difference

Discover the smallest difference in level (dB) you can reliably hear.

www.audiocheck.net

Blind testing a 78 dB Dynamic Range

Checking your listening room's noisefloor, online.

www.audiocheck.net

There is also a 16 bit vs 8 bit blind test on the site, but I guess that is way too easy for you:

The 16-bit v/s 8-bit Blind Listening Test

Can you hear a difference? Of course... you can't.

www.audiocheck.net

I currently don't have access to the right University Library.

No-one has. That's the problem when trying to find a study that proves the impossible.

My clan is the apex predator of apex predators.

Or, just possibly, apex sheep?

 

[Tardian]

Let’s play a game then, assuming that you mean the difference as in audio quality and not in mastering.

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.

Blind Testing a 0.1 dB Level Difference

Discover the smallest difference in level (dB) you can reliably hear.

www.audiocheck.net

Blind testing a 78 dB Dynamic Range

Checking your listening room's noisefloor, online.

www.audiocheck.net

There is also a 16 bit vs 8 bit blind test on the site, but I guess that is way too easy for you:

The 16-bit v/s 8-bit Blind Listening Test

Can you hear a difference? Of course... you can't.

www.audiocheck.net

No-one has. That's the problem when trying to find a study that proves the impossible.

Or, just possibly, apex sheep?

1:1024 chance of being a smartass?

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.

 

[Dredi]

It is a perception matter.

*placebo matter, but whatever
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.

 

[stimpy88]

We had wireless lossless in 1980?

That's the advancement. This is the first wireless lossless to my knowledge.

#Facepalm

 

[Aquinus]

*placebo matter, but whatever
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.

I personally would have liked it if that site provided lossless examples instead of using OGG/vorbis though because while its bit depth might have been reduced before being encoded to OGG/vorbis, the actual format medium is going to have a higher depth than 8 bits, so there is some questions as to what the encoder is doing to the input. Another question that needs to be asked about this is what impact does the reduced depth of each sample make with regard to compression. With a lossy codec, what you very well might experience is reduced quality of the 44.1Khz/16-bit clip is to the point where both clips simply sound equally bad. That's more a function of the lossy codec than anything else. To be honest, I can't hear the difference between the two, but they both also don't sound right in the first place either.

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.

 

[Dredi]

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.

I agree!

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: https://www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_dynamic.php?dyna=48

(Should be pretty easy).

 

[Aquinus]

I agree!

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: https://www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_dynamic.php?dyna=48

(Should be pretty easy).

I thought that the main reason to use 24-bit or 32-bit floating point was for recording to prevent clipping, same thing with a higher sampling rate; so you can more accurately sample down the audio to commonly used formats (the whole idea that more data is never a bad thing when it comes to conversion later.) I had read something, I'm not sure if it's true, that using higher sampling rates can result in harmonic distortion outside of the audible range, but I'm not sure if I buy that. I do have some 96Khz/24-bit content and the fidelity is fantastic, but in reality, if it were sampled down, I would probably not notice a difference. The real difference is that it's 5.1 (6 channel,) and lossless, which makes for a great sounding track.