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Qualcomm could be finest identified for its cellular platforms that you will discover beneath the hoods of a number of smartphones, from Samsung and OnePlus to Oppo and Motorola, however inside these platforms, there are a selection of applied sciences current.

A type of is Snapdragon Sound, which has quite a lot of options beneath its umbrella. That is all the things you could find out about Snapdragon Sound, together with what it’s, what it affords and which units have it.

What’s Snapdragon Sound?

Snapdragon Sound is a know-how developed by Qualcomm that’s designed to ship the very best audio expertise, no matter you are doing. Whether or not that is gaming, streaming music, or making voice and video calls. It ensures a sure degree of HD audio high quality between suitable telephones and headphones with low latency and high-quality voice calls, too.

Snapdragon Sound was first introduced firstly of 2021, obtainable on the Snapdragon 888 chipset. It then got here to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 cellular platform, and extra lately, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 platform that Qualcomm revealed at its Snapdragon Summit in November 2022.

Based on Qualcomm, Snapdragon Sound is “the one resolution designed to ship Lossless music, business main low latencies, and by utilising Qualcomm Bluetooth Excessive Pace Hyperlink know-how, probably the most sturdy Bluetooth connections.”

It is an end-to-end audio system and it has quite a lot of options constructed into it – extra on these additional down – although in an effort to profit from the options, each the cellphone and headphones or audio system want to make use of Qualcomm {hardware} inside.

What options does Snapdragon Sound provide?

Snapdragon Sound has quite a lot of options inside it, as talked about. For 2022, Qualcomm introduced Dynamic Spatial Audio, improved latency and lossless audio.

To be able to expertise a few of these options although, you’ll not solely have to have a cellphone working the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 cellular platform, however additionally, you will have to have a pair of headphones or a speaker with the Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 chipset or S5 chipset inside.

When you have each of these although, listed below are the options you may get and what they imply.

Dynamic Spatial Audio

Snapdragon Sound affords Dynamic Spatial Audio for each wired and wi-fi headphones and the concept is to ship a extra immersive expertise. It is what Apple affords by its AirPods 3 and AirPods Professional fashions, with Qualcomm bringing the know-how to Android right here.

When watching a movie or listening to music with Spatial Audio or Dolby Atmos, the sound stays locked to the place the machine you’re utilizing it on is, even in the event you flip your head left or proper, up or down. The know-how permits for a extra pure and encompassing listening expertise.

Improved latency

With the most recent Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and the units with the Snapdragon S3 or S5 chip, there’s improved latency for gaming on Snapdragon Sound. This could imply that you will get lag-free gaming and a greater expertise total. Qualcomm lowered the latency to 48ms, which is sort of considerably decrease than the standard 300ms you may discover on Bluetooth headphones. Once more although, you will have suitable headphones and a suitable smartphone to profit.

There may be one other ingredient to this half although. Qualcomm additionally introduced an improved model of the S3 Gen 2 chip in June 2023, six months after the Snapdragon Summit. This chip has been designed for use in adapters and dongles, and it’s claimed to ship <20ms latency, which is nearer to what you’d count on from a wired headset, which is often round 5ms to 10ms. The thought is that you simply plug the dongle with the S3 Gen 2 chip inside into your machine – whether or not laptop computer, USB-C cellphone, TV – and you’ll expertise extremely low sub 20ms latencies from a wi-fi headset when gaming. The headset needs to be a Snapdragon Sound-approved headset with an S3 or S5 chip inside and it additionally helps voice back-channel for in-game chat.

Lossless Audio

One of many key options of Snapdragon Sound is aptX Lossless audio. Qualcomm introduced assist for 16-bit 48Hz lossless audio with its Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 platform and S3 and S5 chips, which is a smidge higher than CD high quality, which is 44.1Hz. For units working the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, lossless is accessible at 44.1Hz, whereas these with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 affords 48Hz lossless by Bluetooth LE.

Lossless is designed to supply an an identical copy of the observe you are listening to, adapting based mostly in your atmosphere by scaling again the bit charge in an effort to proceed to ship a very good audio expertise, with no drop outs or glitches, fairly than compress the observe and lose element like Lossy audio does.

Sturdy Connection

Snapdragon Sound is claimed to be optimised to work throughout your units and ship a strong reference to minimal drop-outs or audio glitching, irrespective of the place you’re, even in busy environments when there’s numerous interference from different units round you.

Which units have Snapdragon Sound and the way do you get it?

Qualcomm has quite a lot of companions within the audio world, with many key gamers utilizing Qualcomm chipsets inside their headphones. These companions embrace Bose, Sennheiser, Anker, Jabra and Nura. Bose introduced all its 2023 headphones would assist Snapdragon Sound, which implies 48Hz lossless audio too.

There are at present over 100 merchandise obtainable that assist Snapdragon Sound, which you may get a full record of right here. Not all of those provide the most recent Snapdragon Sound options although as for these, like we talked about, you will have a smartphone working the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 platform and a pair of headphones or audio system working the S3 or S5 chips.

The units supporting Snapdragon Sound characteristic a badge to point they’ve been examined and authorized by Qualcomm to ship the anticipated expertise.

What concerning the Snapdragon Sound dongle?

At present, there’s at present no dongle that can be purchased as a bodily product. Qualcomm hasn’t introduced once we may see the primary dongle or adapter obtainable that options the improved S3 Gen 2 chip inside both, although the corporate has detailed the know-how to a few companions and Pocket-lint was instructed in a briefing {that a} bodily dongle with the know-how would probably arrive “quickly”. We skilled a reference dongle in motion and there was little or no distinction between the Bluetooth headpones we used with the dongle and the wired SteelSeries headset that was used for an AB take a look at.

Together with supporting <20ms latency, the S3 Gen 2 chipset additionally helps the most recent LE Audio Auracast broadcast capabilities for dongles and adapters, which might rework units comparable to TVs, telephones, laptops, PCs, consoles into premium broadcast platforms. For music listening, 24-bit 96kHz high-resolution Bluetooth streaming is supported utilizing Snapdragon Sound and Qualcomm aptX Adaptive audio know-how.