During its sweeping MWC announcements, Qualcomm has launched two new audio-centric processors that enable the wireless transmission of CD-quality 16-bit lossless audio for the best wireless headphones and more.
Announced at MWC 2022, the new chips promise to solve a major problem for the music streaming industry, which is launching high-resolution formats amid the relative incompatibility of high-quality audio transmission over Bluetooth.
The Qualcomm S3 Sound Platform and S5 Sound Platform provide support for 16-bit 44.1 kHz CD quality Bluetooth lossless audio and 24-bit 96 kHz high-resolution Bluetooth audio. The new additions to the Snapdragon Sound Platform also bring Bluetooth LE and Bluetooth 5.3 support and will greatly improve sound quality when listening through wireless headphones rocking the S3 and S5 chips.
The S3 and S5 sound platform chips, which will enable manufacturers to create more advanced earphones, speakers and headsets, can also connect to an unlimited number of Bluetooth hearing aids in secure environments.
“The Qualcomm S5 Sound Platform is designed to deliver studio master listening experiences, with seamless quality scaling to match the source file resolution,” the company writes on its website. “This includes CD-quality lossless audio with Snapdragon Sound, a first for wireless earbuds achieved with our systems-level approach.”
The company is also promising low latency of 68ms (25% less) as part of a new game mode that will allow gamers to “fully sync their audio experience with the action you’re seeing on-screen. These platforms also offer a wireless voice-back channel for in-game chats,” says Qualcomm. The new chips also promise developer stereo recording, 32kHz super wideband voice call quality and built-in adaptive ANC.
James Chapman, Qualcomm’s VP and GM for Voice, Music & Wearables, added: “In these tiny platforms, we’ve integrated our adaptive active noise cancellation into a dedicated block of hardware, and as a result bring substantial noise cancellation improvements to everything that’s in a.” earphones of the listener.”
Jabra, iQOO and Xiaomi have already announced that they will all launch hearing aids with the new chips at their core.