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

I am not an expert, but I do see different BT headsets behave differently on the same Windows system (not even mentioning other devices such as IOS, Mac or Android).

ok, with Plantronics comes a BT dongel (USB), so I could imagine that this also loads a plantronics driver in Windows, to enabble good Mic Sound input ( miles better than via Mic from AirPods Pro). But what I do not understand is, why Windows does not allow the user to define the Audio input quality from the Mic coming via standard BT device/driver.

Hello guys,

I completely agree with all of you and for this reason we have this topic already open. And if you google another related topics this issue is detected since some years ago.

I am a Linux OS developer and my conclussion is that ther is a BUG with windows and bluettoth native drivers. This problem doesnt appears in  LINUX or MACOS with same bluetooth device, so the problem is in Windows.

However as other Windows issues there is not any specialized support. They always response with "you have to go troubleshooting..." or "updates" bla bla bla... anythig works because they don't have a finally solution.  p

I use some workarounds as mentioned in this thread but another time Windows fails without a final solution.

Regards,

Alex

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 to 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.)

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