Bose will update its QC Earbuds II to make them compatible with the Snapdragon Sound protocol and allow them to transmit audio in CD quality.
On the occasion of the Qualcomm Summit, organized this week in Hawaii, the equipment manufacturer unveiled its new generation of mobile processors, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. But this new chip intended for smartphones was not the only announcement made at the occasion of the opening conference of the summit.
In the field of audio, Qualcomm also took advantage of the event to make a major announcement related to its Snapdragon Sound label. The firm has indeed invited Nick Smith, head of strategy and development at Bose, to announce a strengthening of the partnership between Bose and Qualcomm:
In Spring 2023, we will update QuietComfort Earbuds II to enable Snapdragon Sound support. We can’t wait, because it will allow the headphones to support the latest generation aptX Adaptive, including aptX Lossless and aptX Low Latency. This will enable easier and more robust connection with high-end Android devices.
The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II are the latest wireless headphones from the American manufacturer. Announced on the same day as the AirPods Pro 2, they nevertheless offer excellent active noise reduction, good wearing comfort and good sound quality. However, like all Bose products until now, the QC Earbuds II suffered in particular from a rather limited choice of Bluetooth audio codecs, with only AAC and SBC accounting for them, even though they embed a Qualcomm Sound chip. S5 compatible with aptX. When asked at the launch about the possibility of integrating Qualcomm’s aptX codecs, Kevin Manzolini, Bose’s engineering manager, replied: ” For now, we still use the AAC and SBC codecs. But we talk a lot with the Qualcomm teams about their codecs and the door remains open”.
Bluetooth transmission in CD quality
The door was therefore so open that Bose will become one of Qualcomm’s main partners in the years to come. It must be said that while several manufacturers of wireless headphones and earphones already offer the classic aptX codec, few go further, to integrate aptX Lossless, Low Latency or to label their Snapdragon Sound product. Until now, only a few headphones – such as the NuraTrue Pro, the LG ToneFree T90Q, the Xiaomi FlipBuds Pro or the Audio-Technica ATH-TWX9 – offered compatibility with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Sound protocol.
As a reminder, this label allows the headphones to ensure optimal compatibility, when they are connected to a smartphone also labeled Snapdragon Sound. This notably allows transmission of the sound signal via Bluetooth in CD quality, that is to say up to 16 bits at 44.1 kHz, with a bit rate of 1 Mbps.
On the occasion of the Qualcomm Summit, Nick Smith also announced that Bose did not intend to stop at this single update: “ In addition, Bose will bring Snapdragon Sound to its next products “. However, we will have to wait until next spring to find out how this integration of the Qualcomm protocol will be done on the QC Earbuds II.
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