This piece of news touches on two significant points. The new Bose headphones and earbuds are coming LE Audio ready, also packed with an exciting proprietary 3D audio solution.
SAR is seeing a steady uptake of the new LE Audio standard amongst vendors, however, there is some hesitancy for low-end TWS vendors to fully commit until more smartphone vendors also do so. SAR offers full coverage of the uptake of Bluetooth LE Audio and LC3 in its Audio Software & IP Service.
As an analyst who specializes in 3D audio, the announcement of Bose’s take on spatial sound piqued my interest for sure. There has been an exciting buzz surrounding 3D audio over the past few years. Though there has been a drive for codec based solutions—such as Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 Reality Audio (MPEG-H)—software based stereo up mix solutions seem to be becoming the norm, with new proprietary offerings from the likes of Bose and Shure coming to market.
Instead of the use of a 3D audio codec, the stereo up mixer works on device and presents the audio source in a spatialized format. Although this means that any music can now be presented in 3D, there are challenges involved such as tuning implications.
SAR believes that proprietary and other 3D audio solutions on-device, eliminating the requirement for audio to be encoded in a 3D formats and allowing any music to be perceived in 3D will continue to gain traction.
