Qualcomm today announced aptX Lossless, a new feature of aptX Adaptive that promises to deliver CD-quality lossless audio over Bluetooth. AptX Lossless claims to deliver 16bit/44.1kHz mathematically bit-for-bit CD-quality audio with bit rate scalability between 1Mb/s - 140Kbit/s. Qualcomm says no data is lost when audio is encoded and decoded with aptX Lossless. The lossless audio mode will be automatically enabled when aptX Adaptive detects the source file is lossless.

To deliver CD-quality lossless audio, aptX Adaptive works in tandem with "Qualcomm Bluetooth High Speed Link" technology to deliver data throughput beyond 1Mbits/s. In congested environments, it smoothly scales down to 140kbits/s to avoid audio dropouts and glitches.

Note that aptX Lossless isn’t a new Bluetooth codec. Rather it's part of the aptX Adaptive codec. For starters, aptX Adaptive is a highly scalable Bluetooth codec, offering variable bitrate, low system latency, and high data throughput.

An infographic showcasing various features of aptX Lossless

AptX Lossless offers the following features:

  • Supports 44.1kHz, 16-bit CD lossless audio quality
  • Designed to scale up to CD lossless audio based on Bluetooth link quality
  • Users can select between CD lossless audio 44.1kHz and 24-bit 96kHz lossy
  • Auto-detects to enable CD lossless audio when the source is a lossless audio
  • Mathematically bit-for-bit exact
  • Bit-rate:  140 kbit/s – >1Mb/s

"With many leading music streaming services now offering extensive lossless music libraries, and consumer demand for lossless audio growing, we’re pleased to announce this new support for CD lossless audio streaming for Bluetooth earbuds and headsets, which we plan to make available to customers later this year,” said James Chapman, vice president, and general manager, Qualcomm Technologies International, Ltd.

AptX Lossless technology will be available to customers in "late calendar 2021." It will also be part of Snapdragon Sound, a new audio platform that Qualcomm announced in March this year. The platform brings together the core audio and connectivity solutions of Qualcomm under one umbrella.

Last year, Qualcomm introduced aptX Voice, a new feature of the aptX Adaptive codec that claims to deliver significantly improved voice call quality over Bluetooth.