According to Qualcomm’s State of Sound report, spatial audio is pretty hot right now. More than 40% of those surveyed said they’d be willing to pay more for headphones with the feature, so naturally, Qualcomm threw its hat into the ring. It announced Dynamic Spatial Audio as a new feature in its Snapdragon Sound suite and two new audio platforms — the flagship S5 Gen 2 and midrange S3 Gen 2. Not content to talk the talk, Qualcomm had a set of demos ready to flex its audio muscle at this year’s Snapdragon Summit.
The Dynamic Spatial Audio demo itself was simple — a quick minute and a half to show what companies can do — but it’s enough to convince that Qualcomm means business and is able to compete with the Apple W1 and H1 chips that power popular headphones in this space. Taking on Apple’s spatial audio lead might be a modern version of the tortoise and the hare, but at least Qualcomm is off the starting line.