Today, Qualcomm is announcing the new brand initiative “Snapdragon Sound”, essentially a comprehensive term that covers the company’s various audio-related hardware and software products, promising enhanced end-to-end interoperability for a better audio experience.
Qualcomm’s initiative is somewhat vague, but it seems to be focused on a certification program that ensures stacks of correctly designed software between a phone’s audio subsystem and the listening device. Here, Qualcomm seeks to focus primarily on wireless audio technologies with higher audio fidelity, most technologies related to Qualcomm’s proprietary aptX codec and its derivatives. At least one concrete example of an optimized Snapdragon Sound system is the Bluetooth audio latency, which would reach 89 ms in the company’s example.
On the hardware side, mobile platforms obviously cover Qualcomm’s Aqstic audio codec chips, as well as speaker amplifiers, but extend the umbrella to the company’s Bluetooth audio SoCs, which are popular with headset manufacturers. wireless headphones.
It is not clear whether end-to-end optimizations are limited to Qualcomm hardware products only or whether third-party audio hardware solutions will also benefit from the optimized audio stack.
Qualcomm says the first devices with support for Snapdragon Sound optimizations are expected to be available later this year.