Google has confirmed that its Pixel 8 series will get lossless audio support over USB-C.
In a recent Reddit AMA with Google’s Dave Burke and Dieter Bohn, Burk confirmed that the Pixel 8 series will soon support lossless audio:
“I’m excited about this feature (I may have personally asked the team for this quite a while ago, cough!). Basically what it does is ensure “bit perfect audio”, so audio bypasses the audio mixer, any processing effects, etc. We’ve added OS support – so the next step is for support from device makers and app developers. Pixel 8 and other OEMs are expected to support this mode in their hardware abstraction layer (HAL) implementations in later releases. App developers will need to adopt the new API for lossless audio to take advantage of. – Dave”
Burke explained the feature will allow users to listen to their favourite songs without any loss of quality, ensuring perfect audio, as it allows music files to bypass the usual audio processing pipeline. Burke said lossless USB audio will be available let the Pixel 8 series and other Android phones.
While lossless audio is good, app developers need to adopt the feature. Apps like Tidal and Apple Music support lossless audio, but currently, YouTube Music and Spotify have yet to adopt it. However, Spotify seems to have plans to soon support lossless audio.
Google added OS-level support for lossless audio with Android 14 Beta 2. The final version of this update is likely releasing soon.
Via: 9to5Google
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