Alpine Becomes the First Aftermarket Car Audio Company with TIDAL Integration

Alps Alpine North America launched its TIDAL integration available via a free software update. The compatible head units include the new Alpine Halo11 iLX-F511, the Alpine Halo9 iLX-F509, the iLX-507, and Jeep-specific radios i509-WRA-JK and i509-WRA-JL. Alpine is the first aftermarket car audio company with full TIDAL integration, allowing subscribers to the service to stream and download hi-res files in MQA format or lossless audio at CD quality.

Khadas is about to launch an interesting new Ultraslim headphone amplifier with high-resolution audio support for smartphones. The design will be compatible with Apple’s MagSafe (and all the copycat magnetic chargers that are about to arrive in the market), just clipping into to the back of an iPhone 12 or 13. The Khadas TEA features the high-performance ESS ES9281AC Pro DAC, as well as LDAC and aptX HD Bluetooth audio from a Qualcomm QCC5125 chip.

Reacting to the fact that streaming music services have started to offer lossless music streaming options, Qualcomm has now extended its aptX Adaptive set of technologies - supported by its latest Snapdragon Sound processors - to also include a CD-quality lossless option over Bluetooth. The new aptX Lossless technology expands options available for Bluetooth wireless audio, combining codec, wireless link and RF optimizations.

Subscribers to Amazon Music Unlimited can now upgrade to the highest quality streaming audio available, for free. Reacting to the fact that Apple Music announced it will offer lossless audio streaming as standard starting in June, Amazon also announced that Amazon Music HD Lossless Audio, previously available at an additional cost, is now standard for Unlimited Tier subscribers.