6 ms·

This is really a Bluetooth issue. The same happens with any headphones that have a mic on any OS. When Bluetooth mode is switched from Headphones to Headset (w

by Osiris 2y ago

This is really a Bluetooth issue. The same happens with any headphones that have a mic on any OS. When Bluetooth mode is switched from Headphones to Headset (with mic), only much lower quality audio codes are used. Does anyone know if Bluetooth 6 adds support for higher quality codes for Headset? It's a big issue, in my opinion.

viraptor 2y ago
It was a Bluetooth issue years ago. Now it's only an Apple issue where it can't use a more decent codec. On Linux you can choose the mSBC codec and get decent two-way quality on a modern headset.
- jshier 2y ago
  Regardless of codecs, don't all Bluetooth headsets switch to mono I/O when the microphone connects? I find that to be a much bigger quality hit than the encoding.
  - eek2121 2y ago
    Not on Windows to my knowledge. Using the same headset on both Windows and Linux leads to a very different experience. Windows works fine. Linux has the issue macOS has mentioned here.
- andrewoneone 2y ago
  It’s sometimes still an issue on windows but besides advertising the headset audio device most good headsets will create one or more additional audio devices that support high quality input and output.
- iknowstuff 2y ago
  idk man airpods do switch to an AAC variant called AAC-ELD for bidirectional audio but thats still compressed to hell. better than SBC but not as good as unidirectional AAC. I had high hopes for BLE Audio but that seems to be stalled
- RulerOf 2y ago
  > Now it's only an Apple issue where it can't use a more decent codec. Isn't this a Mac-specific issue? I have some recollection in my head that Mac OS uses a terrible codec for bidirectional bluetooth audio, but iOS uses a good one.
- lloeki 2y ago
  > It was a Bluetooth issue years ago It still is, mSBC is really not that good, plus all things considered reasons go beyond just the codec, see my nearby comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41705258 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41705258 Switching to "2x half-duplex" on both ends is really the best thing. I hate it that you can't separately select audio input and output in iOS.
  - eptcyka 2y ago
    mSBC has garbage audio quality.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 2y ago
    The macOS utility Audio MIDI Setup allows you to pick separate devices for this and it also lets you separate the device for system sounds from the device for other sounds.
  - prmoustache 2y ago
    mSBC is still crappy quality compared to what I get on my smartphone. But still Linux allows me to easily use AAC or APTX codec and a separate mic if I want. I don't understand why all desktop OS can't have something better while when I pair my Bose headset on my smartphone it seems to be using a better quality codec profile.
- boffinAudio 2y ago
  >Bluetooth issue Its a licensing issue. The borderlands between the headset and headphone profiles are rife with licensing land-mines - developers have flipped the table and rage-quit the issue, and this technical debt has been shipped. (Disclaimer: I make headset/headphone firmware for a major competitor and deal with this issue every single week...)
  - mst 2y ago
    I just encountered the term "The Ultimate Sadness" reading https://www.computerenhance.com/p/the-case-of-the-missing-increment https://www.computerenhance.com/p/the-case-of-the-missing-in... immediately before this post and I feel like you've found an even worse sadness to deal with on a regular basis. My sympathies, and I appreciate your willingness to wade through neck deep licensing excrement to produce something that still works.
  - derefr 2y ago
    This honestly sounds like a problem I would expect to be solved by white-labelled AliExpress junk products, whose manufacturers can just ignore the licensing issues entirely, because they’re able to hide their IP violations behind reselling through endless shell companies. But I guess it isn’t solved by that. Why isn’t it?
    - boffinAudio 2y ago
      You can't hide from the fact that you have to get your chips from somewhere, and those chips have to run some software, and if you are going to just copy others' software, you inherit their technical debt too - unless you invest in fixing their bugs - and what white-label AliExpress junk product provider has the time for that?
- xyst 2y ago
  Yet another Apple gotcha. I stoped paying the Apple tax long ago. The “ it just works” mantra is long gone
- superhuzza 2y ago
  No, I've had this happen multiple times using various bluetooth headphones with my Google Pixel 8. So it's definitely happening on Android as well.
  - Miraste 2y ago
    It happens on Windows too. In fact it's probably worst there, because the Windows Bluetooth stack is so awful.
chem83 2y ago
Samsung phones paired with Samsung earbuds also, on paper, support high-quality audio for calls.
DidYaWipe 2y ago
Sounds more like a shitty-software issue. The Shazam function should turn the Bluetooth mics off after the song is identified. Why does it just leave them on? Isn't that obvious, or is there some aspect to this I'm not aware of (I care about sound quality, so I don't use AirPods)?
- solardev 2y ago
  It's not just Shazam but any app that uses the mic over Bluetooth. Like if you wanted to have background music playing during a Zoom call, or wanted to wear Bluetooth headphones while gaming and voice chat kicks in when you group up, etc. It's a very annoying problem because the Airpods actually sound fantastic, but as soon as the mic kicks in, it sounds like crap. Same thing happens with my Sony XM3s or any other Bluetooth headset. The protocol drops to a shitty bitrate to support full duplex.
  - DidYaWipe 2y ago
    Understandable, but in that case what's the value of the utility posted here?
    - solardev 2y ago
      It just automates the manual workaround: It tells your system to use another mic, not the bluetooth one, so that the bluetooth headphones go back to listen-only mode and doesn't have to operate in its inferior full-duplex mode. So you'd use the headphones only for hearing, and your computer's internal mic (or another external mic, like a webcam's or a standalone USB one) does the recording input. I do that for all my calls and games already, but I just have to manually set it in the OS (and sometimes on a per-app basis). It only takes a second and usually remembers. If the app were a one-time purchase I'd probably buy it just to avoid the hassle, but definitely not paying a subscription for something that's so easy to do on my own. As a compromise, I'd also be OK with a OS-version tied upgrade pricing, like you pay $x for the macOS 15 version, but when the next breaking OS update comes that requires an update, you can pay $y after the upgrade discount to get the newest version that works with the new OS.
ClassyJacket 2y ago
Why is Bluetooth so bad? This, plus the literal second of latency to my car's speakers. All these problems are solved by headphones with proprietary wireless dongles and they work great, so why can't Bluetooth incorporate those improvements so we can get them on other devices than desktop PCs?
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  Also, wireless subwoofers (that come on many consumer TV speaker systems these days) don't have this latency problem either. You just plug them in and they sync to the system and work transparently. They can't have any noticeable latency, or else the bass would be out-of-sync with either the rest of the audio, or if they slowed down the audio to account for latency, then all the sound would be out-of-sync with the video you're probably watching with it.
  - bzzzt 2y ago
    There are more ways than using bluetooth to transfer digital audio wireless. Probably they are using a custom protocol.
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      Yes, that's what I mean: they're basically doing the same thing as Bluetooth, but their proprietary implementation isn't saddled with the huge latency problems that Bluetooth has. So Bluetooth seems to be a poorly designed protocol.
  - Miraste 2y ago
    Those generally uses a custom 2.4GHz RF protocol, like gaming headsets and mice with dongles.
  - rightbyte 2y ago
    The bass can be sent with a lower bitrate since the output signal is low frequency anyways.
- 2y ago
rkangel 2y ago
It's not just codecs that are different between HFP and A2DP (although that is a big part of the issue). HFP uses an older way (SCO) of transferring the audio which gives much less bandwidth. What we need is a new profile that uses A2DP in once direction and in the other for the microphone. I suspect the reason it has never happened is that there's a good chance of causing issues with existing devices that do at least work with HFP.
LeifCarrotson 2y ago
I've always thought that my 3.5mm corded earbuds, with a mic pill that hangs near my throat, have great mic quality and even better ambient rejection compared to the distant mic buried in the speaker grille of my laptop. Importantly, it's not incredibly disruptive to type notes or use the laptop while in the meeting. Is this specifically a Bluetooth headphone thing, or an "any headphones with a mic on any OS" thing?
- NLPaep 2y ago
  MacOS excels at noise cancellation. Typing on my Windows PC sounds like an earthquake, but you could actually hammer nails during a video call on a Mac and it wouldn't be picked up (it also blocks your voice from coming through, but that’s temporary)
unit_circle 2y ago
Bluetooth 5.2 was supposed to fix this issue. Indeed, my S22 phone with Jabra Elite 8s sounds great in calls. MacBooks newer than 2023 SHOULD have better call quality. They have Bluetooth 5.3¹. Can anybody confirm this? I have been meaning to try pairing my earbuds with a floor model at a store and testing audio quality but's only to satisfy a curiosity for me. --- 1. https://support.apple.com/en-us/111838 https://support.apple.com/en-us/111838
prmoustache 2y ago
> This is really a Bluetooth issue. Yes and no. Part of it is also how the OS is used. Sure if you want to use the mic on your headset you are forced to use a lower quality codec, but on my Fedora I select which profile I want to use on my bluetooth headset[1]. If I set it to AAC or APTX it will not activate the microphone. And I can easily select which device is the primary device for inputs, outputs or individual apps. [1] Typically using pulseaudio volume control which is compatible with pipewire (or rather the opposite).

by Osiris 2y ago

viraptor 2y ago

It was a Bluetooth issue years ago. Now it's only an Apple issue where it can't use a more decent codec. On Linux you can choose the mSBC codec and get decent two-way quality on a modern headset.

jshier 2y ago
Regardless of codecs, don't all Bluetooth headsets switch to mono I/O when the microphone connects? I find that to be a much bigger quality hit than the encoding.
- eek2121 2y ago
  Not on Windows to my knowledge. Using the same headset on both Windows and Linux leads to a very different experience. Windows works fine. Linux has the issue macOS has mentioned here.
andrewoneone 2y ago
It’s sometimes still an issue on windows but besides advertising the headset audio device most good headsets will create one or more additional audio devices that support high quality input and output.
iknowstuff 2y ago
idk man airpods do switch to an AAC variant called AAC-ELD for bidirectional audio but thats still compressed to hell. better than SBC but not as good as unidirectional AAC. I had high hopes for BLE Audio but that seems to be stalled
RulerOf 2y ago
> Now it's only an Apple issue where it can't use a more decent codec. Isn't this a Mac-specific issue? I have some recollection in my head that Mac OS uses a terrible codec for bidirectional bluetooth audio, but iOS uses a good one.
lloeki 2y ago
> It was a Bluetooth issue years ago It still is, mSBC is really not that good, plus all things considered reasons go beyond just the codec, see my nearby comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41705258 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41705258 Switching to "2x half-duplex" on both ends is really the best thing. I hate it that you can't separately select audio input and output in iOS.
- eptcyka 2y ago
  mSBC has garbage audio quality.
- fiddlerwoaroof 2y ago
  The macOS utility Audio MIDI Setup allows you to pick separate devices for this and it also lets you separate the device for system sounds from the device for other sounds.
- prmoustache 2y ago
  mSBC is still crappy quality compared to what I get on my smartphone. But still Linux allows me to easily use AAC or APTX codec and a separate mic if I want. I don't understand why all desktop OS can't have something better while when I pair my Bose headset on my smartphone it seems to be using a better quality codec profile.
boffinAudio 2y ago
>Bluetooth issue Its a licensing issue. The borderlands between the headset and headphone profiles are rife with licensing land-mines - developers have flipped the table and rage-quit the issue, and this technical debt has been shipped. (Disclaimer: I make headset/headphone firmware for a major competitor and deal with this issue every single week...)
- mst 2y ago
  I just encountered the term "The Ultimate Sadness" reading https://www.computerenhance.com/p/the-case-of-the-missing-increment https://www.computerenhance.com/p/the-case-of-the-missing-in... immediately before this post and I feel like you've found an even worse sadness to deal with on a regular basis. My sympathies, and I appreciate your willingness to wade through neck deep licensing excrement to produce something that still works.
- derefr 2y ago
  This honestly sounds like a problem I would expect to be solved by white-labelled AliExpress junk products, whose manufacturers can just ignore the licensing issues entirely, because they’re able to hide their IP violations behind reselling through endless shell companies. But I guess it isn’t solved by that. Why isn’t it?
  - boffinAudio 2y ago
    You can't hide from the fact that you have to get your chips from somewhere, and those chips have to run some software, and if you are going to just copy others' software, you inherit their technical debt too - unless you invest in fixing their bugs - and what white-label AliExpress junk product provider has the time for that?
xyst 2y ago
Yet another Apple gotcha. I stoped paying the Apple tax long ago. The “ it just works” mantra is long gone
superhuzza 2y ago
No, I've had this happen multiple times using various bluetooth headphones with my Google Pixel 8. So it's definitely happening on Android as well.
- Miraste 2y ago
  It happens on Windows too. In fact it's probably worst there, because the Windows Bluetooth stack is so awful.

chem83 2y ago

Samsung phones paired with Samsung earbuds also, on paper, support high-quality audio for calls.

DidYaWipe 2y ago

Sounds more like a shitty-software issue. The Shazam function should turn the Bluetooth mics off after the song is identified. Why does it just leave them on? Isn't that obvious, or is there some aspect to this I'm not aware of (I care about sound quality, so I don't use AirPods)?

solardev 2y ago
It's not just Shazam but any app that uses the mic over Bluetooth. Like if you wanted to have background music playing during a Zoom call, or wanted to wear Bluetooth headphones while gaming and voice chat kicks in when you group up, etc. It's a very annoying problem because the Airpods actually sound fantastic, but as soon as the mic kicks in, it sounds like crap. Same thing happens with my Sony XM3s or any other Bluetooth headset. The protocol drops to a shitty bitrate to support full duplex.
- DidYaWipe 2y ago
  Understandable, but in that case what's the value of the utility posted here?
  - solardev 2y ago
    It just automates the manual workaround: It tells your system to use another mic, not the bluetooth one, so that the bluetooth headphones go back to listen-only mode and doesn't have to operate in its inferior full-duplex mode. So you'd use the headphones only for hearing, and your computer's internal mic (or another external mic, like a webcam's or a standalone USB one) does the recording input. I do that for all my calls and games already, but I just have to manually set it in the OS (and sometimes on a per-app basis). It only takes a second and usually remembers. If the app were a one-time purchase I'd probably buy it just to avoid the hassle, but definitely not paying a subscription for something that's so easy to do on my own. As a compromise, I'd also be OK with a OS-version tied upgrade pricing, like you pay $x for the macOS 15 version, but when the next breaking OS update comes that requires an update, you can pay $y after the upgrade discount to get the newest version that works with the new OS.

ClassyJacket 2y ago

Why is Bluetooth so bad? This, plus the literal second of latency to my car's speakers. All these problems are solved by headphones with proprietary wireless dongles and they work great, so why can't Bluetooth incorporate those improvements so we can get them on other devices than desktop PCs?

shiroiushi 2y ago
Also, wireless subwoofers (that come on many consumer TV speaker systems these days) don't have this latency problem either. You just plug them in and they sync to the system and work transparently. They can't have any noticeable latency, or else the bass would be out-of-sync with either the rest of the audio, or if they slowed down the audio to account for latency, then all the sound would be out-of-sync with the video you're probably watching with it.
- bzzzt 2y ago
  There are more ways than using bluetooth to transfer digital audio wireless. Probably they are using a custom protocol.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    Yes, that's what I mean: they're basically doing the same thing as Bluetooth, but their proprietary implementation isn't saddled with the huge latency problems that Bluetooth has. So Bluetooth seems to be a poorly designed protocol.
- Miraste 2y ago
  Those generally uses a custom 2.4GHz RF protocol, like gaming headsets and mice with dongles.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  The bass can be sent with a lower bitrate since the output signal is low frequency anyways.
2y ago

rkangel 2y ago

It's not just codecs that are different between HFP and A2DP (although that is a big part of the issue). HFP uses an older way (SCO) of transferring the audio which gives much less bandwidth. What we need is a new profile that uses A2DP in once direction and in the other for the microphone. I suspect the reason it has never happened is that there's a good chance of causing issues with existing devices that do at least work with HFP.

LeifCarrotson 2y ago

I've always thought that my 3.5mm corded earbuds, with a mic pill that hangs near my throat, have great mic quality and even better ambient rejection compared to the distant mic buried in the speaker grille of my laptop. Importantly, it's not incredibly disruptive to type notes or use the laptop while in the meeting. Is this specifically a Bluetooth headphone thing, or an "any headphones with a mic on any OS" thing?

NLPaep 2y ago
MacOS excels at noise cancellation. Typing on my Windows PC sounds like an earthquake, but you could actually hammer nails during a video call on a Mac and it wouldn't be picked up (it also blocks your voice from coming through, but that’s temporary)

unit_circle 2y ago

Bluetooth 5.2 was supposed to fix this issue. Indeed, my S22 phone with Jabra Elite 8s sounds great in calls. MacBooks newer than 2023 SHOULD have better call quality. They have Bluetooth 5.3¹. Can anybody confirm this? I have been meaning to try pairing my earbuds with a floor model at a store and testing audio quality but's only to satisfy a curiosity for me. --- 1. https://support.apple.com/en-us/111838 https://support.apple.com/en-us/111838

prmoustache 2y ago

> This is really a Bluetooth issue. Yes and no. Part of it is also how the OS is used. Sure if you want to use the mic on your headset you are forced to use a lower quality codec, but on my Fedora I select which profile I want to use on my bluetooth headset[1]. If I set it to AAC or APTX it will not activate the microphone. And I can easily select which device is the primary device for inputs, outputs or individual apps. [1] Typically using pulseaudio volume control which is compatible with pipewire (or rather the opposite).