Qualcomm Announces "Snapdragon Sound" Initiative
by Andrei Frumusanu on March 4, 2021 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Audio
- Qualcomm
- Smartphones
Today Qualcomm is announcing the new “Snapdragon Sound” branding initiative, essentially an umbrella term that covers the company’s various audio related hardware and software products, promising improved end-to-end interoperability for a better audio experience.
Qualcomm’s initiative is rather vague, but it appears to be to be focused on a certification program that ensures correctly engineered software stacks between a phone’s audio subsystem and the listening device. Qualcomm here particularly looks to focus on wireless audio technologies with greater audio fidelity, most of the technologies surrounding Qualcomm’s proprietary aptX codec and its derivatives. At least one concrete example of an optimised Snapdragon Sound system is Bluetooth audio latency, which would reach down to 89ms in the company’s example.
On the hardware side of things, mobile platforms obviously cover Qualcomm’s Aqstic audio codec chips as well as speaker amplifiers, but extends the umbrella out to the company’s Bluetooth audio SoCs which are popular amongst wireless headphone manufacturers.
It’s not clear if the end-to-end optimisations are solely limited to Qualcomm hardware products, or if third-party audio hardware solutions will also gain benefit of the optimised audio stack.
Qualcomm states that the first devices supporting Snapdragon Sound optimisations are expected to be available later this year.
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Hulk - Thursday, March 4, 2021 - link
So basically this means making bluetooth connections with low latency that work reliably, and DSP that is device specific. Great. That's what should be happening anyway and the resources required for this silly program creation should have simply been put into developing and implementing the technology silently without end user awareness other than devices work and sound good.DougMcC - Thursday, March 4, 2021 - link
But it will have branding (e.g. Intel Inside) that lets you know it has been implemented (licensed). Buy a phone and an earpiece that both have the branding and they guarantee they provide the benefits.cosmotic - Thursday, March 4, 2021 - link
As long as a UI is involved (which their slides indicate), theres little chance this works as reliably and consistently has promisedSantoval - Friday, March 5, 2021 - link
I don't think these slides are from a UI, they appear to just be marketing slides.shabby - Thursday, March 4, 2021 - link
Oh please make the headphone jack as a requirement 😂Arsenica - Thursday, March 4, 2021 - link
Hell no, Qualcomm(R) aptX(tm) won´t get license fees by incentivizing the usage of wired headphones.mode_13h - Friday, March 5, 2021 - link
I bought my last phone for its headphone jack, among other reasons. But, stupid clicking makes it almost unusable.Sharma_Ji - Friday, March 5, 2021 - link
How about not purchasing 100$ phones from now on ?iphonebestgamephone - Sunday, March 7, 2021 - link
Its an lg phone with a hifi dac, costs 400$. How about not being prejudiced from now on?mode_13h - Sunday, March 7, 2021 - link
Thanks, I think.Yeah, it has a Snapdragon 845, so near flagship-level. I think it originally listed for > $700.