Android 17 hides a little nugget for demanding ears: support for the LHDC codec, which unlocks the wireless sound of Pixels. Google hasn’t said a word about it, and you have to go find it deep in the settings.
Bluetooth codecs are the kind of subject that fascinates a handful of audiophiles and leaves everyone indifferent, until the day you discover that your headphones could sound much better. Android 17, deployed on Pixels since June 16has just slipped in an improvement of this type without mentioning it anywhere: native support for LHDC, a high-resolution audio codec long reserved for the competition. Developed by the company Savitech and certified Hi-Res wireless by the Japan Audio Society, it was upgraded to version 5 from 2024.
How to activate it on your Pixel?
The function is hidden in the developer menu, which is to say a place that few users frequent. To reach it, go to Settings, then System, Developer options, Bluetooth, and finally Bluetooth audio codec, where the option LHDC v5 now appears. Two conditions must still be met. You must first connect compatible headphones, otherwise the input remains grayed out, and, depending on the model, activate a Hi-Res mode in the brand’s companion application. You then need a suitable source, for example a Hi-Res Lossless music service, otherwise the gain will remain theoretical. On Pixel, the codec caps at 24 bits / 96 kHzwhile it can technically go up to 192 kHz: Google has obviously preferred the stability of the connection to the race for numbers. All Pixels since series 6 are affected.
Will we really hear the difference?
The honest answer is: it depends on your equipment and your ears. Most people listening to compressed music on entry-level headphones won’t hear anything. With a Hi-Res source and headphones designed for LHDC, on the other hand, the gain is real, with a fuller sound than the old AAC used by default. Until now, the Pixels relied mainly on Sony’s LDAC for high-quality wireless. LHDC plays in the same league, but with an adaptive bit rate known to be more stable in congested radio environments, where LDAC tends to stall. Another advantage is that it can be implemented in software, without a dedicated chip as required by Qualcomm’s aptX, which explains its arrival on Pixels without Snapdragon Sound certification. The list of compatible headphones is growing with models from Nothing, OnePlus or OPPO. Small irony in passing: Google’s own headphones, the Pixel Budsdo not manage the LHDC. The novelty will therefore only benefit third-party headsets, which says a lot about the coherence of the in-house ecosystem.
The real question remains, more annoying than technical: why bury a feature requested for years in a menu that no one opens, without a word in the release notes?
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