What is LDAC (codec) ?

LDAC stands for “Low Latency Audio Codec.” It is a proprietary audio codec technology developed by Sony. LDAC is primarily used for high-quality wireless audio streaming over Bluetooth connections.

LDAC is designed to transmit high-resolution audio content over Bluetooth with minimal loss in sound quality. It can support various bitrates, with higher bitrates offering better audio quality and requiring more bandwidth. LDAC has several bitrate modes:

  1. 330 kbps: This mode is referred to as “Low Complexity” mode and is intended for basic audio streaming.
  2. 660 kbps: Known as the “Balanced” mode, it offers a compromise between audio quality and bandwidth usage.
  3. 990 kbps: The “High Quality” mode provides even better audio quality but requires more bandwidth.

LDAC is especially popular among audiophiles and users of high-resolution audio equipment because it allows them to enjoy high-quality audio wirelessly. However, both the transmitting and receiving devices must support LDAC to work, and the audio source material must also be in a compatible format to fully take advantage of LDAC’s capabilities.

It’s worth noting that LDAC is just one of several audio codecs available for Bluetooth audio streaming, and its adoption depends on the devices and manufacturers involved.

What is a codec?

A codec, which is short for coder-decoder or compressor-decompressor, is a type of technology or software that is designed to compress and decompress digital data, especially audio and video files. The main purpose of codecs is to reduce the size of multimedia content so that it can be easily stored, transmitted, and played back. There are two types of codecs: lossless and lossy. Lossless codecs preserve the original data integrity, while lossy codecs achieve higher compression ratios by sacrificing some non-essential information. Some examples of audio codecs are MP3 and AAC, while video codecs include H.264 and H.265 (HEVC). Codecs are crucial in the multimedia industry because they enable the efficient handling of digital audio and video data.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LDAC_(codec)