What is aptX HD and which devices supportit?

by suki.wang..........com 

With smartphones moving away from wiredearphones and headphones over the past few years - thanks to the removal of theheadphone jack - it was important to advance wireless technology to aptX HD.

Fortunately, you can use a pair of wirelessBluetooth headphones, which, in many ways are more convenient anyway. The onlyissue with wireless Bluetooth is that sound can take a dip in audio quality.

That's where aptX HD comes in, it's atechnology designed to improve the quality of your music when streamedwirelessly. But how does it work and which devices support it? Allow us toexplain.

What is aptX HD?

aptX HD is an evolution of aptX. aptX is alot more common than the HD derivative, so there's a good chance you've alreadyheard of it. It's been around since the 1980s but is now owned by Qualcomm, themanufacturer of the Snapdragon processing chips that are found in the majorityof Android smartphones.

aptX is able to transmit your music in'CD-like' 16-bit/44.1kHz quality, but because it's compressed, it can'ttechnically be classed as "CD-quality". The compression is there tohelp keep latency at an absolute minimum when transmitted wirelessly toheadphones or a Bluetooth speaker.

If you want better quality sound overBluetooth then you need aptX HD. The new technology was launched in 2016 tooffer higher quality streaming and it can support high-definition audio up to24-bit/48kHz. Qualcomm says it offers "better-than-CD" sound qualityand can even enhance the sound of standard resolution music files.

aptX HD has also been designed to improvethe signal-to-noise ratio, meaning you should be able to hear even the mostintricate of details in the songs you listen to.

Whichdevices support aptX HD?

In order to take advantage of the benefitsof aptX HD, you'll need to make sure you have a device that supports it. Thesedevices will have the CSR8675 Bluetooth audio system-on-chip (SoC) as it'scapable of supporting 24-bit audio from end-to-end.

When aptX HD first launched, not manydevices supported it, but now more manufacturers are getting onboard withhigher quality streaming.