Airpods Pro: very bad quality in Headset mode on Windows 10

Hello,

I have studied this in-depth since the same issue appeared with my AirPods and I can answer your question. 

There is no way you can get both good sound and capability of recording with your Bluetooth headset (meaning any device with speakers and microphone) at the same time. The fault is not on Microsoft's side, although their optimization and integration in Windows is rather sad. Let me explain in a more detailed manner.

When you first connect your headset to any device, two Bluetooth profiles are installed. One of them is called A2DP (stereo) which is optimised for sharing audio, but only works one way (can only share sound). The second one is HSP (headset profile) which works both sides, sharing your voice and receiving sound from PC, at the expense of sound quality.

"Okay but it works on my Android device, iOS device, Linux and MacOS device!!! It must be Microsoft's fault!!!"

Well, yeah, but no. As I mentioned before, Microsoft did not optimise this well. Other OS's did better job at masking that you can't get both good sound quality and microphone at the same time. Notice that if you turn on some music on your phone (with your Bluetooth headset on), it is great quality (A2DP). But once you go into your voice memos application and start recording, the music stops. That is because in order to record sound from your headphones, the profile needs to be set to HSP. If the music did not stop at the time of recording, you would be hearing the same sound you be hearing from your Windows PC. I also tried the same thing on my MacBook - played a song, everything was perfect. When I started recording a voice memo, the sound was terrible, but just as I finished recording, the profile changed back and the audio was all clear again.

So what does Windows wrong?

The problem is that Windows just lets you set manually whether you want to you want to use the A2DPor HSP profile and is unable to switch it automatically. I do not know why it can not have this functionality or why it has not been added already, but I am not qualified enough to answer for Microsoft.

Solution? 

The best thing you can do without investing any more money in your setup would be to just manually switch between these two profiles (you can do that in sound settings.) It is sub-optimal since you won't have neither great sound nor great microphone, but hey, it's wireless.

If you want both great sound and sound great, you will have to buy a cable microphone that will stand on your desk. Audio will still be wireless and in great quality (your voice is recorded through the standing microphone, so the headset does not need to switch to HSP.) 

Thanks a lot for this detailed explanation. I can speak for most of us here that your explanation helps this issue make a lot more sense so thanks for writing your post. Hopefully, Microsoft can implement this automatic switching which is on other OS to solve the issue someday

I have been struggling with this topic also for some weeks now, and only here in this thread I learned, that this seems to be a Microsoft Windows issue.

Sadly no real response from Microsoft to get it solved.

The best workaround to use AirPods (Pro) in TEAMS posted here was to use an IOS device for the audio channel and simultaneously a TEAMS session on the PC or Video and screen sharing...but this is not very practical in these days...

If someone from Microsoft reads this thread: please get this issue fixed ASAP.

I have the same problem. Microphone quality is way too bad. Tried to fix it through installing "Headset Bluetooth Helper", since I noticed it solved issues for normal Airpods. Didn't work for Airpods Pro though. 

Audio controls are also hard to use. Instead of lowering the master volume on the "F10-F12"-buttons (using laptop), I have to go deep into sound settings and adjust the volume for each running program.

My solution for the problem so far have been connecting to Teams-meetings first on my iPhone (with my Airpods Pro connected), and then on my PC in silent mode and activating the camera. That way, I get good quality audio output and input while being in the meeting on my PC.

I really don't find this solution to be any more than temporary, and can't believe how Windows haven't fixed this issue yet.

Surprised to see this bug in 2020 given the lockdown and so many people work online. 

I can NOT use my AirPods with Teams in good quality. One issue is "telephone" quality by default while using microphone (those who post youtube vids how to fix it by disabling microphone - please read the issue) 

Secondly volume level jumps to 100% when you reconnect your device or have another call in Teams. Very annoying. 

I see that MSFT is so slow to react on new reality