If sound quality is reduced when using Bluetooth headphones with your Mac - Apple Support (2024)

FAQs

If sound quality is reduced when using Bluetooth headphones with your Mac - Apple Support? ›

Quit apps that use the microphone

Bluetooth headsets can only use one audio profile at a time. So, when you open a video call application with a Bluetooth headset, the A2DP profile (high sound quality but no microphone capability) is replaced by the HSP/HFP profile (headphones and microphone capability but low sound quality).

Make sure the headset is charged or has fresh batteries. Make sure the headset is selected as the input or output device in Sound settings. See Change Sound settings.

To enable this data to pass from one device to another, Bluetooth relies on SBC (low complexity subband coding) compression to 'fit' your music through the technology's imaginary 'thin pipes' – once again, resulting in less detail heard in your music. This doesn't sound great for true music lovers.

This happens because Bluetooth has two modes: The first mode is for listening to higher-quality audio. The second mode is for both speaking through the microphone and listening to audio. When Bluetooth switches to the second mode, audio quality is reduced until the microphone is no longer in use.

Remove interference

Bring your Mac and Bluetooth devices closer together. Remove other devices like phones, cameras, power cables, etc. that might be on your desk or nearby. Move some WiFi devices to 5GHz since Bluetooth and WiFi both use 2.4GHz.

Press and hold the Shift and Option keys and click the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar. Choose the hidden option labeled Reset the Bluetooth module.

How to change Sound output in Mac to Bluetooth headphones? ›

Connect your earphones to the device. Access the 'Developer options' menu. Scroll through the options and find the 'Bluetooth audio codec' setting. Select the Bluetooth audio codec that is supported by your earphones.

Match Mobile Devices with Codec Support

Codec significantly affects the audio quality you get via Bluetooth. However, the headphones must support the phone's codec to reach their full potential. For Apple, the best codec is AAC. Using headphones that don't support AAC leads to experiencing SBC audio quality.

Given the limited bandwidth of Bluetooth, it is impossible to transmit audio without some lossy data compression. Some devoted listeners believe that lossy compression inherently degrades audio quality, and therefore, Bluetooth audio is not acceptable to them.

Sadly this is not an issue with the headset or your system but a limitation of Bluetooth itself. In the talking or headset mode the audio bandwidth available for receiving audio is reduced to provide it to the audio being transferred from the mic hence the reduction in quality and why it improves when you turn off mic.

What's happening behind the scenes is that your Bluetooth headphones are switching from a high-quality audio profile meant for music, to a lower quality, audio delay optimized profile meant for phone calls. In this post we'll introduce you to Bluetooth audio profiles.

A weak Bluetooth connection might be the culprit for audio stutters. To solve this issue, remove or unpair your device from Bluetooth, restart, and then reconnect. You can also try powering your wireless headphones off and back on — sometimes this works to kickstart a bad connection and improve your Bluetooth function.