SBC, or low-complexity subband codec, is an audio subband codec specified by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) for the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP).Bluetooth SIG, Specification of the Bluetooth System, Profiles, Advanced Audio Distribution Profile version 1.3. https://www.bluetooth.org/docman/handlers/DownloadDoc.ashx?doc_id=260859&vId=290074 SBC is a digital audio encoder and decoder used to transfer data to Bluetooth audio output devices like headphones or loudspeakers. It can also be used on the Internet.C. Hoene, F. de Bont, "RTP Payload Format for Bluetooth's SBC audio codec", IETF draft, work in progress, Dec. 2010, https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-avt-rtp-sbc-01 It was designed with Bluetooth bandwidth limitations and processing power in mind to obtain a reasonably good audio quality at medium bit rates with low computational complexity. As of A2DP version 1.3, the Low Complexity Subband Coding remains the default codec and its implementation is mandatory for devices supporting that profile, but vendors are free to add their own codecs to match their needs.

At CES 2020 the Bluetooth SIG announced LC3 as the successor of SBC. LC3 is used in the LE Audio protocol based on the Bluetooth 5.2 Core Specification.

Design SBC supports mono and stereo streams, and certain sampling frequencies up to 48 kHz. The maximum bitrate required to be supported by decoders is 320 kbit/s for mono and 512 kbit/s for stereo streams. It uses 4 or 8 subbands and an adaptive bit allocation algorithm in combination with an adaptive block PCM quantizer. The codec's author, Frans de Bont, based the SBC audio codec on his earlier work,F. de Bont, M. Groenewegen and W. Oomen, "A High Quality Audio-Coding System at 128 kb/s", 98th AES Convention, Febr. 25-28, 1995. and – in parts – on the MPEG-1 Audio Layer II standard. In addition, SBC is based on the algorithms described in the EP-0400755B1.J.B. Rault, Y.F. Dehery, J.Y. Roudaut, A.A.M. Bruekers, R.N.J. Veldhuis, "Digital transmission system using subband coding of a digital signal", Publication number: EP0400755 (B1), Priority number(s): EP19900201369 19900530; EP19890201408 19890602 The patent owners wrote that they allow the free usage of SBC in Bluetooth applications with a goal of boosting the use of this technology.

Variants Overview SBC SBC profiles FastStream Audio CD Middle Quality High Quality main stream back stream (for reference) misc. Launch – May 2003 March 2008 1982 Related patents (expired) – J.J. Lazzeroni, M.K. Carevich, J.D. Vertz, P.E.H. Hauser, S.J. Kingston, "Simultaneous voice and audio traffic between two devices on a wireless personal-area network", Publication number: US9398620 (B1)(expired) – Freeimplementations FFmpeg, libsbc libsbc libsbc – Proprietaryimplementations – multiple hardwareimplementations hardware implementationin Qualcomm chips – AudioEncoding Channels Mono (1)Joint Stereo (2) Joint Stereo (2) Joint Stereo (2) Mono (1) Stereo (2) Sampling rate 16 kHz32 kHz44.1 kHz48 kHz 44.1 kHz48 kHz 44.1 kHz48 kHz 16 kHz 44.1 kHz  Bit rate up to 510 kbit/s(@ 44.1 kHz)up to 507 kbit/s(@ 48 kHz) 229 kbit/s(@ 44.1 kHz)237 kbit/s(@ 48 kHz) 328 kbit/s(@ 44.1 kHz)345 kbit/s(@ 48 kHz) 212 kbit/s(@ 48 kHz) 72 kbit/s(@ 16 kHz) 1411 kbit/s(@ 44.1 kHz) Subbands 4 or 8 8 none Bitpool 2...86 (@ 44.1 kHz)2...78 (@ 48 kHz) 35 (@ 44.1 kHz)33 (@ 48 kHz) 53 (@ 44.1 kHz)51 (@ 48 kHz) 29 32 none

Middle and High Quality A2DP recommends encoders to support Middle Quality and High Quality presets as specified in the above table. As a result, most operating systems use the High Quality profile by default.

Higher quality variants A2DP requires decoders to support higher quality streams - up to 512 kbit/s. The SBC XQ codec used by Lineage OS and Linux distributions, has a higher bit rate of up to 551 kbit/s - giving it a comparable audio quality to aptX HD (529 kbit/s).

FastStream While A2DP officially supports only one-way audio streams, CSR has found a way to send a voice-back stream opposite to the main stereo stream, making it possible to use A2DP in headsets with microphones. It was implemented in the FastStream codec, which is the SBC codec with set parameters and the voice-back stream added.

Implementations The A2DP test specification (V1.0) contains a reference implementation of the encoder and decoder for the SBC codec. A Linux implementation is available in BlueZ - the Linux Bluetooth stack.

See also Audio codec aptX Bluetooth profile Adaptive differential pulse-code modulation List of codecs

References