"Spring Headphones Festival 2019" started today on the 27th. HUAWEI exhibited the neckband type Bluetooth earphone "FreeLace" compatible with the company's total Bluetooth audio solution "HWA" as a reference exhibit. In addition, the details and advantages of HWA, which also supports 96kHz / 24bit, were appealed at the booth.
The "Free Lace" machine was released in some parts of the world from this April, but the release in Japan was undecided. At this booth, it was revealed that FreeLace will be introduced in Japan from around May and will be the first HWA compatible earphone to be introduced in Japan. Free Lace exposes the USB-C terminal when you remove the earphone on one side. Another feature is that pairing can be done simply by inserting this directly into a compatible smartphone. When you disconnect the cable on one side, the USB-C terminal appears. As mentioned above, at the booth, the superiority of HWA was once again appealed. HWA is a Bluetooth audio system and authentication system based on a unique codec called LHDC. LHDC can be said to be a codec that supports the third high-resolution equivalent transmission, following LDAC and aptX HD. LHDC supports up to 96kHz / 24bit. The LHDC codec supports 96kHz / 24bit, but uses its own algorithm for its transmission. Specifically, the high-resolution audio is divided into two areas using an auditory psychology model, and lossless (reversible) encoding is performed for the bands that are important for hearing, and lossy (lossy) encoding is performed for the other bands. In addition, the latter signal is said to be relocated to a redundant area in the low frequency band for transmission. Through such processing, it is possible to realize a wide band, high dynamic range, and lossless sound quality. Documents on the encoding method of the LHDC codec distributed at the venue The point that less important signals are lossy-compressed and relocated to redundant areas is reminiscent of the processing in MQA. Of course, there is no relationship between the two, but it is interesting as a common feature of the latest audio technology. On the other hand, the company explains that HWA will be developed as a system that guarantees not only the codec but also the total quality from the encoder input on the sending side to the output on the receiving side, while being based on LHDC. As a result, not only sound quality but also latency and connectivity can be guaranteed. Other features of HWA include high sound quality even at low bit rates due to its high compression rate, and low distortion and high S / N by using only carefully selected high-quality DACs. Regarding HWA certification, Bluetooth connection compatibility, stability, latency evaluation, and digital / analog standard setting will be certified. This certification is divided into detailed processes and plays an important role in ensuring quality. In any case, with the advent of FreeLace, it seems that Japanese users can actually experience the sound quality of HWA around early summer.
