Qualcomm S7 Pro Sound Platform

Last week Qualcomm announced a few new chipsets for wireless audio devices. In this post I will only cover the S7 Pro, as it is the most interesting in my opinion as it features WiFi connectivity at micro-power.

Impact-Site-Verification: 8643f472-01ec-4094-8223-2820fa08b5e4

Why is this important? Simple, Bluetooth no matter what anyone says cannot deliver true high resolution lossless audio. But with WiFi you can. Qualcomm claims the new S7 Pro chip with WiFi support can stream up to 24-bit 192Khz lossless audio. Qualcomm calls this XPAN, or Expanded Personal Area Network. But of course there is a major caveat, in order to take advantage of the WiFi in the new chipset, you will need to have a phone powered by Qualcomm's newest Snapdragon, the 8 gen 3, or a PC with the X Elite platform.

We already know Sony will have a new smartphone with the 8 Gen 3 chipset, so technically if Sony were to release a new set of wireless earbuds powered by the S7 Pro, they could make use of the XPAN feature.

Except a lot of smartphone users will be using either previous gen hardware, or Apple hardware. Meaning none of these users could use the XPAN feature in the earbuds. But, the Digitlatrends article does mention a possibility of the tech coming to devices without the Snapdragon chipset, like wireless speakers. I am hopeful but skeptical. 

The requirements for both the mobile and audio chipsets for certain features to work, is why Sony opted for Mediatek/Airoha chipsets, as they could provide what Sony required, regardless of the mobile chipset being used in the audio device (smartphone, PC, walkman).

Let us have a quick look at the specifications of the new S7 Pro:

• CPU - 300 Mhz
• DSP - 2 x 500 Mhz
• Bluetooth 5.4 support
• Bluetooth LE Audio experiences, with Auracast Broadcast Audio
• Music Streaming (A2DP): ~4 mA (no information for WiFi streaming)
• Up to 3 mic support in earbuds
• 10.6 MB ram
  

Impressive, for comparison, the V2 in Sony's WF-1000XM5, has a CPU speed up to 260 Mhz, and the DSP up to 520 Mhz. I believe the V2 (AB1588) comes with 16MB of embedded ram. But it is unknown what frequencies Sony uses on its chip, as there is no public V2 datasheet.

Sony also has their own custom chip, the CXD3277 chip found in the new INZONE buds. We do not have any information about this chip either, so we have no actual specifications, apart from codec support, LC3, and the Bluetooth version, 5.3. There is no LDAC or AAC support in this chip. The CXD3277 could be a Sony in-house chip or a very customized Airoha/Mediatek chip.

Could we see a similar WiFi streaming tech from Airoha/Mediatek? I suspect so, but so far I have not seen any new Airoha chip announcements or rumours online.  The previous Airoha chipsets announced were the AB1565/68 in July 2022, so perhaps something later this year or early next. Assuming a new Airoha chip with WiFi for TWS is in the works, I do not think we will see it in earbuds first, but a larger headset like perhaps a new WH-1000XM6. Sony also has the WH-XB920N but I suspect this might re-use the V2.

The one thing I am wondering about is how much power this micro-power WiFi uses. We have a figure for the A2DP Bluetooth power consumption, around 4mA, but no figures for WiFi. I would guess that it would be more power hungry than Bluetooth but how much more? If you could only get 1 hour of listening, would it be worth it? Would love to see 3-4 hours but perhaps that is asking for too much with the current tech?

So what are people's thoughts on this WiFi in earbuds? Good idea or stick to Bluetooth? Would you as a consumer choose a non-Sony device if it offered this tech, even if said earbuds had inferior sound and NC? Or would you rather stick to better sound and NC versus true lossless streaming?