Qualcomm Technologies International, today announced Qualcomm® Snapdragon Sound™ technology, an optimized chain of audio innovations and software designed to provide seamless, immersive audio in, and across, devices including smartphones, wireless earbuds, and headsets. Snapdragon Sound is designed to provide a superior sound experience for consumers while listening to streaming music, communicating on the phone, or wirelessly gaming. To coincide with this launch, Amazon Music and Qualcomm Technologies also announced a curated Snapdragon Sound Playlist.
There are many ways sound quality can be disrupted between users and devices. How devices connect, breaks in connectivity, audio dropouts and glitches, latency, and poor audio compression can all contribute to a tiring and distracting listening experience. By optimizing interactions between Qualcomm technology stacks, Snapdragon Sound is designed to deliver a more robust and seamless wireless listening experience, supporting high-resolution 24-bit 96kHz audio, ultra-low latency, improved pairing, and crystal-clear voice quality. To solve end-to-end latency challenges, Snapdragon Sound can support Bluetooth latencies as low as 89 milliseconds (45% lower than a leading competitor) for more immersive gaming and a better video-watching experience. For those who prefer listening directly from the mobile device, Snapdragon Sound incorporates the Qualcomm Aqstic™ DAC, designed to support formats of up to 384kHz 32-bit PCM and DSD with ultra-low THD+N.
Key Technologies
The key components of Snapdragon Sound include:
- Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 8-series mobile platforms
- Qualcomm® FastConnect™ 6900 mobile connectivity system
- Qualcomm® QCC514x, QCC515x and QCC3056 series Bluetooth Audio SoCs
- Qualcomm® Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) technology
- Qualcomm® aptX™ Adaptive(tm), 24-bit 96kHz and 89ms latency
- Qualcomm® aptX™ Voice super wideband voice
- Qualcomm Aqstic™ audio codec and smart speaker amplifier WCD938x and WSA883x)
- Qualcomm Audio and Voice Communication Suite
To ensure high levels of performance, Snapdragon Sound-optimized devices will be tested for interoperability in Qualcomm Technologies’ dedicated test facility on measures of performance including audio quality, latency, and robust connectivity.
Devices supporting Snapdragon Sound are expected to be available later this year. As products are available, consumers will be able to look for the Snapdragon Sound badge on optimized devices to readily identify phones, earbuds, and headphones and, in time, other devices like PCs, watches, and XR glasses designed to deliver the full benefit of these advanced audio features.
Snapdragon Sound is available to OEMs today and more information can be found, https://www.qualcomm.com/company/events/snapdragon-sound. Further details and additional enhancements to the ecosystem will be announced later this year.
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