Mobile and wireless sound are some of the most ubiquitous things that we are taking advantage of nowadays. Just in recent years, we saw an increase in the number of people adopting true wireless headphones and earphones like the Sony WH-1000MX3 and the Galaxy Buds Pro. However, as Qualcomm’s James Chapman put it, the industry has a “dirty secret” – sound quality is reduced – sometimes significantly when it goes wireless. That’s where Qualcomm believes it can step in to help revolutionise wireless audio with its new initiative called Snapdragon Sound.
Snapdragon Sound is essentially Qualcomm flexing its proven prowess in two fields – wireless audio and mobile. A flex which, in the company’s own words, puts them in a unique position to address the issue of lacklustre sound when it comes to mobile and wireless audio. The new Snapdragon Sound initiative merges the technology and capabilities from Qualcomm spanning their mobile platforms, Bluetooth audio connectivity and video technologies to culminate in what is, essentially, a new certification for mobile sound.
Qualcomm’s new audio-centric efforts seem to have borne some fruit with the company already touting 2 times the bitrate when it comes to streaming music wirelessly and even when taking voice calls over wireless audio products. They also report a 45% lower latency when it comes to audio-video synchronisation. These comparisons were done against the mSBC codec with Qualcomm’s developed aptX codec.
That said, Qualcomm has lofty goals for Snapdragon Sound promising partners an already optimised sound experience for devices. Their optimisation focuses not only on the quality of the connection from the source device to the headphone or earphone but from the audio itself to the ear. At least, that’s what Qualcomm is claiming. Snapdragon sound promises to improve overall user experience by focusing on better fidelity, battery life, latency, and voice among others.
Qualcomm says that they will be certifying devices that utilise their Snapdragon Sound platform in a facility in Taiwan. These devices will be tested to meet their requirements at this facility before they are certified. At the time of the announcement, Qualcomm announced Xiaomi, Audio-Technica and Amazon Music HD as official Qualcomm Snapdragon Sound partners. Of note, Qualcomm did mention that current Snapdragon flagships do not have Snapdragon Sound certification.