Qualcomm announced its new Snapdragon Sound platform to help optimize audio across various mobile technologies.
The company says that Snapdragon Sound should help provide a “superior sound experience” while listening to streaming music, talking on the phone, or gaming. Further, Qualcomm partnered with Amazon Music to launch a curated ‘Snapdragon Sound’ playlist to emphasize the benefits of the platform.
“The human ear is highly sensitive to glitches, latencies and other challenges which commonly occur when streaming music, video conferencing, or gaming over wireless connections. By focusing end-to-end, we are looking to deliver innovations to solve common consumer pain-points across virtually all audio interaction points,” said James Chapman, VP and general manager of voice, music and wearables at Qualcomm.
In a press release, Qualcomm explained that there are several ways that audio can be interrupted. For example, the ways that devices connect with each other, breaks in connectivity, audio dropouts, glitches, latency and poor compression can all significantly disrupt the audio experience.
In essence, Snapdragon Sound is an optimization of Qualcomm’s various technologies that claim to improve the audio experience. Chapman likened it to listening to wired earbuds during the company’s virtual event but with wireless technology.
Qualcomm says Snapdragon Sound can deliver robust, seamless wireless audio with high-resolution 24-bit 96kHz audio, low latency and more. Further, Sound can support Bluetooth latencies as low as 89 milliseconds. The company says that’s 45 percent lower than a leading competitor. It also supports “super wideband voice,” which should significantly improve sound quality for calls.
Snapdragon Sound relies on key components, including Snapdragon 8-series mobile platforms, Qualcomm’s FastConnect 6900 system and the QCC514x, QCC515x and QCC3056 series Bluetooth Audio systems-on-a-chip (SoCs). It also involves Qualcomm’s Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) tech, aptX Adaptive, aptX Voice, Qualcomm’s Aqstic audio codec and finally, the Qualcomm Audio and Voice Communication Suite.
To ensure high-performance levels, Qualcomm says it will test Snapdragon Sound-optimized devices in a dedicated facility.
You can learn more about Snapdragon Sound on Qualcomm’s website.
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