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

For everyone wondering why a Macbook can function with full duplex high quality audio and Windows cant, it goes beyond just a simple codec. MacOS is providing some extra sound emulation on top of the normal "telephone quality" mode to enhance it and bring it up to par with "cellphone quality" audio. If you attempt to play music from your macbook while engaging in a zoom call on your airpods you will notice the music quality is worse than without the conference running. The most likely explanation here is that MacOS is doing some fancy audio correction to improve quality while airpods are being used in "headset" mode. Windows lacks this finesse, and simply reduces all audio quality until you switch back to "headphones" mode.

The inclusion of AAC audio should not address this, and is only a minor update meant to support the popularity of that codec in general as it is considered better than aptX for general music listening purposes. It is true that the windows audio selection menu will remove the "hands free AG" mode but this is only to reduce user confusion, not make Windows function as well with airpods as Macbook's do.

This is just one of those things where MacOS shines. If you want a handsfree headset that works well with Windows you'll have to get a gamer/conference style headset that includes an auxiliary USB dongle to handle the audio stream.

BUT if Android and Apple are able to find a workaround, why cant Microsoft, for years? Thats ridiculous.

No "workaround" exists because this is a MONEY issue.

Qualcomm invented the aptX codec and they threw it in for cheap if the phone manufacturers buys their Qualcomm chipset. And if you buy a pair of wireless headphone with aptX codec then you are all good to go. Of course, if you buy a pair of Apple AirPods then that wouldn't help.

Apple paid AAC codec on both their computers and their iphones. Apple got the AAC codecs for cheap because Apple iTunes music store is huge.

The way it supposed to work is Dell buys a bluetooth chipset from Intel and Dell decides whether to pay for the extra fancy codecs. But since no pc manufacturer ever paid for AAC codec and Microsoft kept on hearing complaints about it --- Microsoft has decided to pay for the AAC codec themselves (for 21H2).

It is the same as people complaining for 6 years on why Windows 10 doesn't have 5.1 optical out. It's a MONEY issue.

People always talked about their Realtek audio chipset supports 5.1 or 7.1, but do they read the last sentence. If your motherboard manufacturer or your PC manufacturer didn't pay for Dolby Digital, then you don't have Dolby Digital and you won't have 5.1 optical out. Nothing to do with Microsoft.

https://www.realtek.com/en/products/computer-peripheral-ics/item/alc892

Conclusion:

For unknown reason the Plantronic and the Sennheiser do not use the “Hands-Free AG Audio” profile but something of their own, with significantly higher sound quality for the mic. Still no user adjustable sound quality setting is possible.

Tested Apple headsets and one other BT device are stuck to low quality audio profile, due to the fact that Windows does not allow the user to freely choose the quality within the “Hands-Free AG Audio” profile.

@Windows developers: get this fixed please. Make the sound quality user adjustable on the "Hands-Free AG Audio" profile as well.
Please do not bother about things like "reduced battery life of the BT device" - the user himself should decide.

Apple AirPods supports Hands Free Profile 1.5 (which is 8k bitrate) and not HFP 1.6 (which is 16k bitrate). Same thing for MPOW. How is that Microsoft's fault?

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250418163

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bluetooth_profiles#Hands-Free_Profile_(HFP)

The good sounding Plantronics and Sennheiser uses HFP 1.6.

Your notebook supports HFP 1.6. During the Bluetooth pairing process, your computer asks your headsets which Hands Free Profile version they support. The good sounding headsets tell your computer that they support HFP 1.6. The bad sounding headsets tell your computer that they support HFP 1.5.

IT'S NOT A BUG, IT'S A FEATURE

As conclusion to my research: this is not a bug, it’s feature.

When you get shown two options:

(A) Headphone (xxx Airpods Pro Stereo) and

(B) Headset (xxx Airpods Pro Hands-Free)

... you NEED to decide which “functionality” you want to use. 

Hint: You get the second, if the Airpods was connected to your mobile device, like iPhone and then switch to Windows.

Here we dive depth, "Why this behavior is at it is?":

This is explained better here, but basically,

• use Stereo when you're listening to music,
• Hands-free if you're using your laptop for calls.

Hope this help’s out.

BR