Does your phone have the LDAC for your soundcore Q35?

Duane_Lester · April 30, 2021, 2:51pm

I got my Q35 yesterday evening but have not had time to check them out as I spent 3 + hours talking to my father after I got home.

As I got to use the Q35 a little at work but before some meetings this morning. I kept thinking of one question that kept popping into my head. "Does my phone have LDAC or not? It was my number one question as I can not truly test the Hi Res if i do not know if my current device or devices are able to handle the LDAC.

As I did a deep dive into my settings, I was still unsure if it active or not. This was when I started a little research as I needed to remember how to get into the developers options as I thought it had some information about the codec that can be enabled…

In case you do not know what LDAC is here is a little info about what it is:

LDAC is an audio codec created by Sony that allows you to stream high-resolution audio up to 32-bit/96kHz over Bluetooth at up to 990kbps. This means that LDAC will allows approximately three times more data to be streamed over Bluetooth. I believe per some video watched here that LDAC is only on Android at this time.

So here are some instruction to find out if your device is LDAC enabled or not.

The first thing is that you have to have an Android phone. You will need to go to your settings and find the section for about my phone. Once you get here, you can now search for the field Build Number (this may be under a sub folder depending on how your sections are separated.

Tap on the build number 7 times. This will open up developer options. You can back out until you can find the developer options. From there you can select the Bluetooth Audio Codex. If the LDAC is not grayed out then, you should have the LDAC on your device.

I have found that if your Q35 are on, it should auto default to the highest audio codec available. (If the headphones are off, then SBC will default and if Q35 are on the LDAC will automatically become enabled).

Provided some visuals after tapping the build number since yours may be different.

Developer options

Audio Codec section

Audio Codec values(and if it is enabled and selectable on your device)

I hope this helps but if I got anything wrong please let me know. I have been in developers options only a few times. PS. You can turn off the developer options after you check if LDAC is active for your device or not by turning it off.

Shivam_Shah · April 30, 2021, 3:17pm

We have iPhone and Windows laptop so nothing supports LDAC. Maybe try to see the difference between your phone and pc/laptop to really see if LDAC makes that much of a difference

scelestus · April 30, 2021, 8:02pm

I tested it with Samsung Galaxy S9 and Xiaomi Mi10T Pro. On both phones LDAC was automatically selected after pairing. And I can tell you, it really makes a difference from sound quality perspective. The sound spectrum when having high quality content (FLAC or High Quality Spotify) is much better when compared to AAC.

ktkundy · April 30, 2021, 9:09pm

LDAC doesn’t work on iphones which will probably impact lots of people’s buying choices with the new headphones

Duane_Lester · April 30, 2021, 9:09pm

Glad to hear it. Without comparing to another device and limited listening due to work and family time, I thought it sounded pretty good. I did find one issue ont the auto pause and the app but it is minor though

Duane_Lester · April 30, 2021, 9:17pm

Maybe but I thought worldwide that Android made up about 75 or 80 percent of phones. I could be wrong on that stat. Even if that was true you would have a smaller percentage with ldac as that is a new technology

ktkundy · April 30, 2021, 9:19pm

True sounds about right but in the us I think it’s apple winning so I guess a lot depends on where they get most of their sales from

sodojka · May 1, 2021, 11:00am

@Duane_Lester Thank you for the good tech tip.
Thanks to it, I was able to find out what audio codecs I have on my smartphone. Until now, I couldn’t find it. And now I know I have LDAC, aptx andand aptx HD. Great advice!

carmelaaachia · May 1, 2021, 11:17am

Anker / Soundcore is focusing on countries with above-average iPhone owners so you’d expect more than half of users get nil benefit. For example in USA iphone is half the market.

Next, LDAC is actually 3 speeds, 330 660 990 and while Soundcore mentions LDAC there is an implicit 990 assumption. Many phones and adaptive bitrate like on your phone will mean no benefit.

So in reality you’d expect less than half the folks get real benefit.

More would get it with AptX which is better on the phones which have LDAC. Latency for media / gaming, and those who use wired to lower latency don’t use the codec anyway.

Good to have the LDAC option but for most people it’s not going to be helped / liked. It’s owners of both Q30 and Q35, their reviews are the critical ones as anyone who only reviews Q35 and say great sound many (say half) would get the same sound on Q30.

On your phone screen see the adaptive setting, play with the 330 vs 660 vs 990. 990 should sound best but if you’re in a crowded space will stutter.