Qualcomm Brings Lossless Audio to Bluetooth

Qualcomm today announced aptX Lossless, a technology designed to deliver CD-quality 16-bit 44.1kHz lossless audio quality over Bluetooth. As part of Snapdragon Sound, aptX Lossless automatically kicks in when a phone detects the user listening to a lossless music file "and the RF conditions are suitable". In congested RF environments, aptX Adaptive can "smoothly scale down" from over 1Mbit/s to as low as 140kbits/s, to minimize audio dropouts and glitches. aptX Adaptive works in conjunction with Qualcomm Bluetooth High Speed Link technology to help deliver the required sustainable data throughput. While 16-bit 44.1kHz lossless is the default, users can also choose a 24-bit 96kHz lossy mode. The technology is expected to be available by the end of 2021.