What’s Snapdragon Sound, what does it provide and which units have it?

Qualcomm is perhaps finest recognized for its cell platforms that you’re going to discover underneath 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 kind of is Snapdragon Sound, which has numerous options underneath its umbrella. That is every little thing you must learn 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 most effective 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 appropriate telephones and headphones with low latency and high-quality voice calls, too.

Snapdragon Sound was first introduced in the beginning of 2021, out there on the Snapdragon 888 chipset. It then got here to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 cell platform, and extra just 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, trade main low latencies, and by utilising Qualcomm Bluetooth Excessive Velocity Hyperlink know-how, probably the most strong Bluetooth connections.”

It is an end-to-end audio system and it has numerous options constructed into it – extra on these additional down – although as a way 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 numerous options inside it, as talked about. For 2022, Qualcomm introduced Dynamic Spatial Audio, improved latency and lossless audio.

So as to expertise a few of these options although, you’ll not solely have to have a cellphone operating the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 cell 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.

In case you have each of these although, listed here 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 way of its AirPods 3 and AirPods Pro models, 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 gadget you’re utilizing it on is, even if you happen to 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’re going to get lag-free gaming and a greater expertise general. Qualcomm diminished the latency to 48ms, which is kind of considerably decrease than the everyday 300ms you may discover on Bluetooth headphones. Once more although, you will have appropriate headphones and a appropriate smartphone to learn.

There may be one other factor 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 anticipate 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 gadget – 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 must 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 help 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 operating the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, lossless is obtainable at 44.1Hz, whereas these with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 affords 48Hz lossless by way of Bluetooth LE.

Lossless is designed to provide an an identical copy of the monitor you are listening to, adapting primarily based in your setting by scaling again the bit charge as a way to proceed to ship a very good audio expertise, with no drop outs or glitches, slightly than compress the monitor and lose element like Lossy audio does.

Strong Connection

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

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

Qualcomm has numerous companions within the audio world, with many key gamers utilizing Qualcomm chipsets inside their headphones. These companions embody Bose, Sennheiser, Anker, Jabra and Nura. Bose introduced all its 2023 headphones would help Snapdragon Sound, which suggests 48Hz lossless audio too.

There are at the moment over 100 merchandise out there that help Snapdragon Sound, which you may get a full checklist of 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 operating the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 platform and a pair of headphones or audio system operating the S3 or S5 chips.

The units supporting Snapdragon Sound function 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 the moment no dongle in the stores as a bodily product. Qualcomm hasn’t introduced after we would possibly see the primary dongle or adapter out there 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 possible 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 akin 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.