CSR has acquired Belfast-based APT Licensing (APTX). This follows a three-year collaboration under the CSR eXtension Partner Program, which saw APTX’s professional-quality audio compression brought to consumers on CSR's wireless audio platforms. All 17 APTX full-time staff members will become an integral part of CSR’s audio platform team, and CSR plans to retain the apt-X product brand. APTX joins CSR with existing IP licensing agreements in place with industry-leading consumer and technology brands, including Altec Lansing, Creative, Jaybird and Sennheiser.
The acquisition enables tighter integration of apt-X low-latency audio compression codecs with CSR’s next-generation audio products. It also enables CSR to substantially strengthen its presence in the real-time streaming audio market for mobile and wireless consumer applications.
APTX is renowned for nondestructive, transparent audio compression solutions, which retain the full integrity of the original digital audio and are optimized for real-time audio streaming. The apt-X suite of compression algorithms has earned a reputation for high audio quality, low latency and strong resilience to bit errors.
Another of APTX’s latest codecs is apt-X Lossless, which features ultra-low latency and low power consumption that make it suitable for portable, battery-driven applications requiring the highest audio quality. APTX has been working on the development of scalable codecs that can be adapted for specific acoustic environments, battery life savings, latency and error resilience. CSR sees great potential in this technology, which offers the opportunity to create new, fully adaptive audio platforms.
