When choosing a Bluetooth speaker, we often focus on brand, design, battery life, and volume. However, the core performance and ultimate sound quality are largely determined by an internal, often overlooked component—the main control IC chip. It acts as the brain and heart of the speaker, handling wireless connectivity, audio decoding, signal processing, and power management. Different chip solutions directly create the vast difference between speakers priced from a few tens to thousands of yuan. This article delves into mainstream and budget Bluetooth chips, analyzes their impact on sound quality, and explores future technological trends.
1. A Complete Picture of Mainstream Bluetooth Speaker IC Chips
The Bluetooth speaker market can be divided into high-end, mid-range, and budget segments, each employing different chips:
1. High-End Leader: Qualcomm
Representative Series: QCC30xx, QCC51xx, QCC40xx series.
Features: Support for advanced audio codecs (like aptX, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive), integrated high-performance DSP and Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), stable connectivity, and rich features.
2. Mid-Range Pillars: Realtek & Actions (JieLi’s competitor in mid-tier)
- Representative Chips: Realtek RTL8763 series, Actions ATS28xx/ATS30xx series.
Features: Strike a good balance between performance, features, and cost. Typically support Bluetooth 5.x, some support basic DSP sound effects and voice assistant wake-up. They are the preferred choice for many domestic brand mid-range products.
- Budget Kings: Bluetrum & Jerry (JieLi)
Representative Chips: Bluetrum ABxxx series (e.g., AB560X), Jerry AC69/79 series.
Features: Kings of extreme cost-effectiveness. Highly integrated (combining CPU, DSP, RF, power amplifier onto a single chip), significantly reducing solution cost and development difficulty. They dominate the vast majority of the ultra-low-cost Bluetooth speaker market.
- Ecosystem Giant: Apple
Representative Chips: H1, H2 chips.
Features: Built specifically for the Apple ecosystem, its core advantages are seamless switching, low latency, and the “Hey Siri” experience. It is used exclusively in its own products (like HomePod and Beats).
2. Analysis of Advantages and Focus of Chip Solutions
- Qualcomm: Focus is on “Sound Quality” and “Features”. Its aptX series coding technology can transmit higher bitrate audio via Bluetooth, significantly reducing latency and sound quality loss, especially suitable for users who care about sound quality. Furthermore, its powerful DSP performance supports complex algorithms like ANC and ambient sound passthrough, commonly found in high-end headphones and speakers.
Advantages: Best sound quality potential, stable connectivity, comprehensive features, abundant development resources.
Disadvantages: Highest cost.
- Realtek & Actions: Focus is on “Balance”. They offer more reliable connection stability and better noise floor control than budget chips, while also supporting some basic sound effect adjustments. For many brands that don’t want to pay the Qualcomm premium but still require certain quality, this is the safest choice.
Advantages: High cost-performance ratio, stable performance, practical features.
Disadvantages: Limited supported audio codecs (usually up to SBC/AAC), DSP performance lags behind Qualcomm.
- Bluetrum & Jerry (JieLi): Focus is on “Cost” and “Mass Production”. Their core goal is to minimize cost while ensuring basic functionality (can play sound, can connect). Speakers using these chips can focus their budget more on appearance, battery, and speaker units.
Advantages: Extremely low price, mature solutions, short development cycles.
Disadvantages: Generally average sound quality (weaker performance in basic parameters like noise floor control, separation, dynamic range), simple features, relatively poorer connection stability and anti-interference capability.
3. Professional Perspective: The Impact of Different ICs on Speaker Sound Quality
Sound quality is subjective, but it can be measured through objective data. According to extensive actual measurements from professional audio review media Audio Science Review (ASR), the influence of the chip is mainly reflected in the following aspects:
Supported Audio Codecs: This is the most direct impact.
- Qualcomm’s aptX/aptX HD codecs can preserve more detail during Bluetooth transmission. Their measured end-to-end distortion and frequency response curves are far superior to the basic SBC codec.
- Budget chips like those from Jerry and Bluetrum usually only support SBC, with some supporting AAC. The SBC codec suffers from significant compression at low bitrates, losing high-frequency details and creating a “muddy” or “muffled” sensation.
- Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) Performance: The DAC built into the chip converts the decoded digital signal into an analog signal.
- High-end chips have built-in DACs with higher Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and lower Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise (THD+N). For example, a speaker using a QCC5171 chip might easily achieve an SNR above 105dB, while a budget chip might hover around 90dB. A higher SNR means a blacker background, lower noise floor, and clearer details.
- A lower THD+N value represents more accurate signal reproduction and purer sound.
- Output Drive and Noise Floor: To achieve integration and cost reduction, budget chips often integrate the analog power amplifier (Class D) as well. However, the performance of integrated amplifiers is generally inferior to discrete amplifiers and are more prone to producing inherent idle noise (a slight “hiss” when music is paused), greatly affecting the listening experience.
- Conclusion: A speaker using a top-tier speaker driver but paired with a budget IC will have its sound quality ceiling severely limited by the chip. Conversely, a speaker using a high-end Qualcomm chip will usually have better clarity, detail retrieval, and noise floor control, even if the speaker driver itself is average.
4. Future Development Trends of Bluetooth Speakers
- Adoption of LE Audio: Bluetooth LE Audio technology will be a game-changer. Its new LC3 codec can transmit higher quality audio at lower bitrates, significantly improving battery life, and supports Multi-Stream Audio and Auracast broadcast audio. Chips from high-end to budget will gradually adopt this standard.
- Deep Integration of AI and Smart Voice: Chips will integrate more powerful NPUs (Neural Processing Units) for local voice assistant wake-up and command recognition, enabling faster response and better power efficiency.
- Platformization and Integration: Chips are becoming comprehensive platforms integrating wireless connectivity, audio processing, power management, and sensor fusion, facilitating the development of products with more complex features.
- Performance Catch-Up of Budget Chips: With technological iterations by companies like Bluetrum and Jerry, the performance of budget chips (e.g., noise floor control, codec support) is gradually improving, which will enhance the user experience of entry-level products overall.
5. Article Reference Materials and Data Sources
①Audio Science Review (ASR): An authoritative forum providing extensive objective measurement data for audio equipment (including devices using different chips).
https://www.audiosciencereview.com
②6Qualcomm Official Technical Documentation: Whitepapers and architecture details on aptX audio and QCC series chips.
https://www.qualcomm.com/products/features/aptx
③Bluetooth SIG Official Technical Documentation: Core technology introductions and performance reports on LE Audio and the LC3 codec.
https://www.bluetooth.com/learn-about-bluetooth/bluetooth-technology/le-audio
④IPO Prospectuses and Annual Reports from companies like Bluetrum and Actions Technology: Provide first-hand information on market structure, product lines, and technology development directions.
⑤Industry Analysis Reports: Such as reports on Bluetooth audio chip market share from Counterpoint Research or Strategy Analytics