Chip manufacturer Qualcomm expects their new Bluetooth chip to allow lossless streaming via Bluetooth before the end of the year.
Bluetooth has various codecs for streaming sound in high quality. However, none of them are lossless; there is always some form of compression applied. Qualcomm’s new S3 and S5 sound chips should change that. This makes lossless listening in CD quality via Bluetooth possible for the first time. Several higher qualities that have not yet been specified should also be available in lossless quality. There is a small ‘but’, though: the new chips – which are expected to appear in headphones and other items this year – only work losslessly in conjunction with Snapdragon Sound Technology. Also from the stables of Qualcomm, by the way. Apple (and also Google) devices do not have Bluetooth hardware from this brand on board. So wait and see what they go for; perhaps Apple will develop a competing alternative of its own.