Part of the great improvement made by Microsoft for Windows 10, which will be called "Sun Valley", includes important changes in terms of audio, more specifically the wireless carried out through Bluetooth. This implementation is present in the latest version of Windows 10 Insider, according to The Verge, and will make Apple's TWS headphones, the AirPods, have better streaming quality on Windows computers.
The big change is in the addition of Bluetooth audio codec support AAC Advanced Audio Codec. Currently, Windows 10 only supports SBC and aptX codecs for Bluetooth headset users.
About the AAC (Advanced audio coding) codec
The AAC codec was developed by: Bell Labs, Fraunhofer Institute, Dolby Labs, Sony and Nokia. It is the standard format for iPhone, iPod, iPad, Nintendo DSi, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 3. It is supported on PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Wii, Sony Walkman, Android and BlackBerry.
The codec can provide a data transfer rate of up to 250kbps. But despite having a slightly lower transfer rate, AAC is widely praised among compression algorithms and is considered a step up from the SBC codec.
Apple has chosen to adopt the AAC codec for all its devices, in addition to the SBC codec, which is a requirement to have the A2DP Bluetooth profile. Apple Music streams with AAC natively, so it's the best choice for a library of AAC or ALAC files. For best results, you need to be careful not to use your iPhone to stream other compressed audio formats. Files compressed in Spotify's MP3 or Ogg Vorbis format will need to be decoded by the iPhone and then encoded in AAC before being streamed to the headset.
Other Audio Implementations in Windows 10
In addition to adding the AAC codec to Windows 10, Microsoft is changing the way audio terminals are displayed. Now, instead of seeing the same device listed in the most different ways to connect, Windows 10 will show a single audio terminal.
With the new update, only one audio endpoint will be shown in the volume dropdown. Also, Windows 10 will automatically switch to a different audio output if you're watching a video on YouTube and need to answer a call in Microsoft Teams, for example.
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