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Communications Hardware

New Qualcomm Chips Tease CD-quality Audio for Earbuds and Faster 5G (theverge.com) 51

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Qualcomm is using Mobile World Congress to show off some new technology that should improve 5G connectivity and wireless audio. From a report:The Snapdragon X70 5G modem-RF system attempts to improve your phone's 5G connection with the help of an AI processor. This helps it maximize 5G signal for better coverage -- particularly important for mmWave signals, which are short-range compared to the broader coverage of low and mid-band frequencies. Qualcomm says this improvement is limited to situations like stadiums and city blocks, and that it doesn't address one of mmWave's key weaknesses: the signal's inability to travel from outdoors to indoors. But where there's no mmWave signal, the new AI processor should boost sub-6GHz coverage and speeds, too. The new audio features, wrapped up in a platform called Snapdragon Sound, include a feature teased last year: wireless earbud support for 16-bit "CD-quality" lossless audio over Bluetooth.
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New Qualcomm Chips Tease CD-quality Audio for Earbuds and Faster 5G More

New Qualcomm Chips Tease CD-quality Audio for Earbuds and Faster 5G

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  • Are you telling I've been listening to music at a quality lower than one developed in 1982!?

    We don't need lossless, we just need playback of the original MP3/AAC/Vorbis/etc stream such that it wasn't re-lossy-compressed.

    • Are you telling I've been listening to music at a quality lower than one developed in 1982!?

      Yes.

      (and so far, nobody has noticed!)

      • Plenty of people notice, enough to keep an entire industry alive just for them. You may not have noticed, or cared, but that doesn't mean other people don't.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
          I fon't doubt that some oeople hear the difference, but I suspect a lot of oeople that say they here the difference would not do so well on a blind test. There is probably a lot of bias going arroun, or pkacebo " I soent x mounys recarching evdy component, spent a lot of money on this setup, soent a litt if time to get all the eqs set just som so this must be way better than the evarage system you can just pick up at the local hi-fi outlet and sat up in 30 minutes". Ofc the 10x setup is probably better th

          • I fon't doubt that some oeople hear the difference, but I suspect a lot of oeople that say they here the difference would not do so well on a blind test.

            Depends on the codec. While I see a lot of people throw the word lossless around claiming things like high bitrate AAC is horrible compared to FLACs (and of course failing blind tests), the same cannot be said for Bluetooth codecs. They are garbage. Even the ones that sound like they shouldn't be (like AAC for example) are garbage since they are overwhelmingly optimised for low latency and very power efficient coding. Bonus points for adaptive bitrate codecs if you don't have your phone physically glued to

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ffkom ( 3519199 )
        And how should they notice, now that children hear music only through puny headphones and "bluetooth speakers"? Many of that poor generation have never heard music replayed by a capable HiFi set with sizeable speakers.

        To me, it is fascinating how the average reproduction quality of music first steadily improved from the 1950s to the 1990s, and has been in decline since then.
        • The worst is the loudness war, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] which has more detrimental effects than crappy encoding. A good concert or such can still be enjoyed even trough a crappy FM radio link, but the loudness war results in meddling with mastering levels.

    • I'm at a loss here, I thought a2dp was 16bit/44k?

      • its lossy compressed, and can be uncompressed to any bit width and sample rate.

        Perhaps the numbers you are throwing around dont mean anything here, yes?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mark-t ( 151149 )

        I'm at a loss here....

        I see what you did there.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        I'm at a loss here, I thought a2dp was 16bit/44k?

        It is, but the default codec is SBR which is terrible (it was created to be royalty free). Thus, all Bluetooth devices must support SBR, but even at 512kbps ("High Quality" in many options), it sounds worse than 128kbps MP3.

        A2DP allows alternative codecs, like AAC, MP3, PCM, and fancy ones like AptX. But A2DP does not specify any sort of resolution or sample rate.

        Bluetooth 2.0 EDR should allow for up to 2Mbps, which allows for 48kHz/16bit PCM audio, but runni

      • A2DP is a Bluetooth profile. It identifies device communication capabilities, but it does not specify a codec, bitdepth or sample rate.

    • That would necessitate extra, or different, hardware in the earbuds. They're probably using a hardware decoder purpose-built for the single function of decoding Bluetooth audio. It's not going to support the array of codecs that a software media player can.

      Obviously you want to avoid multiple rounds of lossy compression wherever possible. But if you have to do it, subband codecs (like it appears most BT audio uses) handle this kind of transcoding better than the codecs you are more familiar with. (Those yo

      • Qualcom makes the chips in those earbuds. They would need to upgrade to the new cd-quality codec chips in this proposed alternative anyway.

        Wireless is very nice when running/exercising. It's also nice never getting wrapped up on a chair. It's also nice with earloop masks and not getting tangled.

        • How does wireless make running easier? I run with wired headphones all the time and never have an issue.

          I do on occasion get my desk headphones wrapped on the chair, but that's only because the cord is excessively long. I could easily fix that with a twist tie, and in fact I think I will, thanks for the tip. It never bothered me enough for me to think about that on my own.

          As far as masks, I'm required to wear them at my current job. I wear my wired earbuds with the mask for hours each day. Maybe once or twi

    • Used to be called Bayesian Analysis - they stick AI onto everything nowadays. As for Audio, Google has some good ones, around cosines. But earbuds like speakers, do not have constant response curves, Impedance changes with frequency - that is a law of physics.
  • Must be Qualcomm Ad Day.

  • 1980's, here we come! I can't wait for CD quality earbuds and "hear a pin drop" landlines.

    --
    The mistake, if I made one, in the late 1980s, was thinking I needed to change my game. - John McEnroe

    • I remember my first portable CD player. If I carefully set it down and didn't move it, I could listen to music at my desk doing homework or while sitting quietly in a park. Eventually I got a CD player with 3 second anti-skip, sufficient for most of the bus ride home. Absolutely revolutionary and FULL CD QUALITY.

      The 1990's were an amazing time to be alive.

      • 3-second anti-skip, even if you shake it around a little (which of course I never would do)? Eldritch witchcraft, I say!

    • No no I want cassette tapes back. Nothing like the soothing sound of tape hiss in the background. Not to mention how fast and convenient it is to skip tracks.

  • So it sucks?

    The 411 on CD quality â" the sampling rate used by CDs sucks.

    • You get your 411 from marketing departments? The 411 I heard is that I have a bridge to sell you.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
        or some scrap metal from Paris /really cheap but you do the diss assembly, crane to reach top of current structure to be provided by purchaser)

  • I'm 42. I refused to use [smart]phones for entertainment from the very beginning. It's nice to know that twenty years later, my thirty-year old discman still wins -- if I could find it.

    I grew up in an age where screens got bigger, sound got better, and handheld devices got smaller -- all noticeably every year. Graphics cards could do more, processors could do more, web-sites could do more.

    Today, I have three thirty-inch monitors on my desk -- DVI-D, already 15+ years old, and still not worse than modern

    • my thirty-year old discman still wins -- if I could find it.

      Ironic. You're so happy to know something wins when objectively it doesn't even leaver the starting line. The best entertainment you have is the one on you, and you don't even know where your entertainment is. The shittest nastiest most heavily compressed early digital radio stream "wins" over that thing you're oh so proud of.

      I've never seen someone be such a self destructive luddite actively proud of going out of their way to not be able to enjoy something.

      • You took my obvious example as the only truth. Allow me to simplify it for you.

        I have large speakers and exceptional music in every room of my home and car. All of that is far better than my 1990 discman.

        My point wasn't that my discman is better than your phone.
        My point is that even my discman, is better than your phone.

        My family room doesn't even recognize your phone as a speaker. Your phone can't produce audio with enough definition to be heard over the sound of a kitchen sink's running water.

        My family

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
          You are absolutely right, but you are not talking about the main application of bluetooth either ( no matter what the manufacturers of BT sound boxes etc tells us) that is music on the go or where you for one reason or the other cam't put up said speakers amps, wires and what ever else your setup needs. Also I suspect most people don@t want the ultimate listening experience () , they just want to play their tunes convenient at a reasonable quality. For that application BT is perfect and if lossless BT bec

      • The shittest nastiest most heavily compressed early digital radio stream "wins" over that thing you're oh so proud of.

        That is not actually true. If the music sounds shitty enough I'd rather just listen to traffic, engine noises, crowds of people, or whatever not listening to shitty music sounds like. Shitty sound is a step down from ambient.

        • If the music sounds shitty enough I'd rather just listen to traffic

          The overwhelming majority of the population is not a stuck up audiophile snob.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by noodler ( 724788 )

            So if at any time you think a music reproduction system sucks really hard you're automatically a 'stuck up audiophile snob' ?
            That sounds like a bunch of dumbfuck from someone who doesn't hear when they're listening.

            • Nope. But preferring the sound of traffic simply because your music isn't high quality is basically the dictionary definition.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by noodler ( 724788 )

                To be fair, bluetooth audio generally does suck. A lot. And that's compared to 40 year old technology.

    • Smartphone doesn't necessarily equate to Bluetooth audio. Most of them still have 3.5mm output jacks and the quality of the DAC driving it is just as good as any Soundblaster card from 15 years ago. And certainly better than some of the mobo-integrated sound that was circulating in the 2000s.

      I feel like the situation may be more dire in the car world as far as 3.5mm disappearing. I haven't looked at new cars in the last few years, but what I hear isn't good. I'm almost willing to pay extra for a car without

  • Seriously, this sort of thing needs to get put at the back of the chip fab queue until supply has caught up with demand for existing chips.

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