Qualcomm Unveils S7 Pro Snapdragon Sound Platform With Micro-Power Wi-Fi and 24-bit/192kHz Lossless Streaming

During its Snapdragon Summit event Qualcomm unveiled the latest S7 and S7 Pro Gen1 Sound platforms, which will soon power a new generation of advanced audio products. The new platforms offer five times the compute power, three times the DSP processing power, and almost 100 times on-device AI processing power compared to the previous generation. A real differentiator is the use of micro-power Wi-Fi to extend wireless audio range and support for up to 192kHz lossless music quality in the S7 Pro.

As expected, on September 12, Apple announced the new iPhone 15 series models, which now all have USB-C connectors (but only use USB3). More importantly, Apple introduced new AirPods Pro (2nd generation) with USB-C charging capabilities and anticipated new audio experiences to all AirPods Pro models with iOS 17 updates. Between the lines there is an announcement about an upcoming "groundbreaking wireless audio protocol" supporting lossless audio over 5GHz.

Swedish digital audio processing pioneer Dirac and Australian headphone company Nura announced a collaboration on the upcoming NuraTrue Pro wireless earbuds, featuring Dirac Virtuo spatial audio. The latest earbuds from Nura mark the first collaboration between the two companies and demonstrate Dirac’s growing leadership position in the headphone market – after establishing its technology in the automotive, home theater, and mobile markets. The NuraTrue Pro earbuds are now fully funded on Kickstarter.

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.