Audio switching to 'tinny' profile?

[Mohammad001]

I'm not exactly sure what the title should be. I'm using some Bluetooth headphones and they connect perfectly with my MacBook Pro. Thing is, whenever I receive a Skype call (I believe anything where a microphone is involved), it switches to "tinny" sound quality.

Not sure why this is - it happened on my old Windows laptop as well. On Windows, you can go to the sound preferences and choose whether it should output the sound through 'Headphones' or 'Headphones - Handsfree'. When it is on handsfree, the audio turns tinny as well.

How can I make sure it always is connected to non-handsfree in macOS? Lately, a video application I use (that doesn't use the microphone) periodically switches to the tinny sound profile, making the video sound terrible.

I can reproduce the sound by playing something in the background, go to Sound preferences -> Input and select the bluetooth device. If I instead select the Internal Microphone, the MacBook will still switch to the other tinny profile.

Any idea? Maybe I can completely delete the bluetooth headphone from the "Input"?

 

[bartvk]

I thought I was the only one. Happens to me too, with my JBL Reflect Bluetooth earbuds. I get it when playing movies with VLC. Sometimes, fforgetting and recomnecting the Bluetooth device works.

This all happened with the 10.12.2 update. A bit annoying

 

[Mohammad001]

Shouldn't this happen to all Bluetooth headphone users? I tried another pair of bluetooth headphones with the same result. I can't really see why this 'feature' is useful at all, so why is it even there?

I tried forgetting the device, I couldn't really get it to work even after several attempts. Still hoping for a solution.

 

[bartvk]

I found the following but you need Bluetooth Explorer, which now is part of the developer tools:
https://bencollier.net/2011/04/improve-compressed-bluetooth-audio-on-mac/

I'll see if this solution still works.

Edit: it didn't...

 

[Mohammad001]

I don't have the Bluetooth Explorer option? I did try installing it from elsewere, it didn't work for me either.

A lot of people are having the same problem. Apparently, the bandwidth on Bluetooth doesn't allow both high quality audio and microphone at the same time..

In any case, the solution is to disable the microphone/handsfree mode on the headphone. Still not sure how to do that. An option exists in Bluetooth Explorer under Audio Options, but it didn't work.

 

[CMoore515]

Happens all the time on various headsets for me. Think it's "normal" more or less.

 

[Mohammad001]

Happens all the time on various headsets for me. Think it's "normal" more or less.

I'm sure it is, doesn't mean we shouldn't try to find a solution for it.

Whenever the tinny audio starts, I always end up not watching that particular video. I can't even use Siri on my computer with Bluetooth headphones connected.