AirPods Max - quality varies on iPhone vs. MacBook Pro

[auronrenouille]

So I have AirPods Max and love them. I normally use them to listen to music on my iPhone XS Max, but for reasons I connected them to my MacBook Pro (2018 15") instead. The sound quality when playing the same content (e.g. the same song from my music library) varies enormously. On my iPhone, I get the full range of audio, it sounds great. But when I play the same media on my MacBook to the same AirPods Max, the audio sounds extraordinarily muffled. What gives? It's the same song, which I took off of a Japanese CD that I own some ~10 years ago, so there oughtn't be any difference in audio file quality. I would've expected the MacBook version to be "higher" quality, since it holds my core music library. But nope, it's my phone that gives me vastly better quality.

The song is an obscure-ish Japanese pop song so it's not pulling it from Apple Music. In both cases, it's my file, pulled from the original CD from Shibuya Tsutaya ;p.

(Edit: This same phenomenon happens with all music on MBP vs. iPhone XS Max, but I used that particular song to ensure that it wasn't just a difference in encoding - it's not.)

 

[Pug72]

Try changing input mic to internal in sound settings

 

[bigshot]

What kind of file are you playing? Is it AAC 256 VBR?

 

[vladi]

iOS does sound processing before the output while MacOS or Windows or Android does not.

 

[bigshot]

That would only affect spatial audio tracks, right?

 

[GumaRodak]

I think the general BT codec is set to SMC or how it is called on your mac, thats lowering the quality of audio. you have to switch the osx to use aptx or aac. I read somewhere the APM do not support aptx ??? So aac is the way to go

 

[macphoto861]

Here's an experiment to try. In the Mac's Music app, take a look at the Airplay icon/menu (the one on the app's window, not the system one in the menubar). It's probably set to the first option ("Computer...") which plays through the systemwide output device you have selected. Try selecting the Airpods Max in this menu, and see if that makes a difference.

I ran into a similar problem a while back (with a different set of headphones) where they sounded terrible on the Mac but fine on iPhone/iPad. Selecting the headphones directly from that menu within the Music app restored expected sound quality.

That being said, I think it was just a mysterious glitch, because it resolved itself after a while (got correct sound through headphones with the "Computer..." setting). But clearly there was some kind of issue there, because there was a HUGE difference in sound between the two settings.

 

[Pug72]

Try changing input mic to internal in sound settings