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Headphone Microphone quality?

Algr

Algr

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 27, 2022
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825
Earth (mostly)
I've never seen a review of headphones that mentioned the quality of the mic built into them. I just bought some beats bluetooth headphones, and while the sound is fine, the mic is unusably bad. If I tried to make phone calls with this, I'd be barely intelligible. I compared them to some pack-in Apple analog earphones, and they were wildly superior. (I tested using the voice memo app.)

1) Is this inherent to all bluetooth headphones, since they don't have a straight line to your mouth?
2) Do high quality mics within headphones exist? What brands?
3) Is it possible to use the mic on the phone while bluetooth headphones are in use?

Thanks!
 
I use my AirPod Pros regularly for calls and nobody's ever complained about voice quality, or, to my knowledge, noticed a difference compared to using the built-in microphone.
 
It has to be pretty bad for people to complain. Try using the Voice Memo app, and compare the AirPods to the mic built into the iPhone.
 
I don't know about in general, and I use my AirPods to talk on my watch, and no one has complained. But I did a similar experiment a couple of years back (on my computer, when we went remote at work) and the EarPods (the ones that have the 3.5mm jack), plugged into a 3rd party USB A or C adapter (mine are JSAUX brand, but I'm pretty sure most of them are made in the same few factories) produced by far the best sound. I tried AirPods (not Pros), EarPods plugged into the 3.5mm jack, EarPods plugged into the apple adapter (3.5mm to USB-c), and the JSAUX adapters, and recorded a note on my work computer. The differences were pretty big, so I've stuck with the EarPods/adapters for work ever since.
 
My wife and I each bought Beats Studios several years ago - the microphone on that headphone was so bad I could barely understand my wife on calls especially if there was any surrounding noise. People constantly told me they could not make out what I was saying.

AirPods 3 has a pretty good mic. AirPods Pro 2 has a great mic. IMO wired will always be a tad bit better than this tho.

But of all these, nothing beats the mic on the MacBook or Apple Studio Display (which I use on my work calls while having audio go to my AirPods - I have the Mic set to MacBook or Studio Display). This only works on Zoom/WebEx/Teams calls as far as I know (so to answer your #3 question - not that I know of).

But yeah, the Beats had a HORRIFIC mic.
 
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Algr said:
It has to be pretty bad for people to complain. Try using the Voice Memo app, and compare the AirPods to the mic built into the iPhone.
Click to expand...
I tried that and quality was extremely similar. The built-in mic was better, but not dramatically so - close enough that I'd always prefer using my AirPods. Also, I've had multiple people comment positively on the clarity and quality of phone calls while using my headphones.
 
If you’re talking about AirPods Pro 1 or 2 there dozen of posts about the awful mic quality.

It’s a design defect from the first generation, there’s no solution about it.

When you’re outdoor the mics capture all the sounds coming from the outside,
Muffling the voice.
 
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I've done all three of those. No one has ever mentioned awful mic quality to me, or that my voice sounded muffled. The last call I made (on an extremely windy day), the person on the other end could tell it was windy outside, but had no problem hearing me or understanding what I was saying.
 
My wife and I both use Bose QC 35II headphones and we use them for meetings, business calls etc and the quality of the mic is great always crisp and clear.
 
Algr said:
I've never seen a review of headphones that mentioned the quality of the mic built into them. I just bought some beats bluetooth headphones, and while the sound is fine, the mic is unusably bad. If I tried to make phone calls with this, I'd be barely intelligible. I compared them to some pack-in Apple analog earphones, and they were wildly superior. (I tested using the voice memo app.)

1) Is this inherent to all bluetooth headphones, since they don't have a straight line to your mouth?
2) Do high quality mics within headphones exist? What brands?
3) Is it possible to use the mic on the phone while bluetooth headphones are in use?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
1) Yes, distance of the microphone away from the mouth does play a major role for poor voice quality in some poorly designed headphones, regardless of whether it's Bluetooth, WiFi or Wired.
The other factor is also the inherent lower bitrate and low sample rate of the CSVD and mSBC codec used in Bluetooth Headset Profile and Bluetooth Handsfree Profile, used in Headphones/Earbuds and Car Audio.

2) Headphones with dedicated Boom Microphones should inherently have better voice call quality. Check out Orosound and Jabra headphones with dedicated boom microphones.
However, even the Apple AirPods Max and some Bose Bluetooth headphones offer good microphone voice call quality, depending on the background noise, as heard in the comparison in the link above.

3) Yes. Bose Bluetooth Headphones have an 2.5mm audio jack, to connect a 2.5mm to 3.5mm audio cable to, which you can connect to your Smartphone with a 3.5mm adapter. Once connected, the microphone on your Smartphone will be used.
 
ovbacon said:
My wife and I both use Bose QC 35II headphones and we use them for meetings, business calls etc and the quality of the mic is great always crisp and clear.
Click to expand...
While I agree the microphone on the Bose QC35 II are crisp and clear.

Unfortunately, the crisp and clear nature of the Bose QC35 II microphone, also lets a lot of background chatter noise in and voice call quality becomes extremely bad if taking calls outside when windy, in comparison to the Apple AirPods Max.
 
WeekendGearGuide said:
While I agree the microphone on the Bose QC35 II are crisp and clear.

Unfortunately, the crisp and clear nature of the Bose QC35 II microphone, also lets a lot of background chatter noise in and voice call quality becomes extremely bad if taking calls outside when windy, in comparison to the Apple AirPods Max.
Click to expand...
Well, I don't have meetings while wandering around outside.... Any other regular call is perfectly fine and I've never had anyone complain that they could not understand me.
 
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1) No, not all Bluetooth headphones have microphone quality problems. Quality depends on the specific model and manufacturer. Some Bluetooth headphones have a good microphone quality that provides clear speech reproduction.
2) Yes, there are Bluetooth headphones with high quality microphones. Some brands known for their sound quality and microphones include Sony, Bose, Sennheiser, Jabra, and others.
3) Yes, in most cases, when Bluetooth headphones are connected to the phone, you can use the phone's built-in microphone to make calls. In the phone settings, you can select the sound source and microphone for calls.
If you're having trouble with microphone quality on your Beats headphones, it's a good idea to check for headphone software updates.
I use iPods Air for conversations and quite a lot for work, I've never had any problems, my interlocutor hears me well.
J'ai aussi des écouteurs Beats Studio Pro sympas, j'écoute habituellement de la musique dessus.
 
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In my case, AirPods Pro were the worst Apple product I've ever had.
  • Fail ear tip fit test with any of the three provided tips, and with foam tips. (forgot the brand but it's what everyone recommends). Somehow, I've never had this problem with non-Apple products. Why can't they work out something even $5 no-name Chinese brands manage to get right ?
  • The left mic got extremely weak after about a year . I cleaned the mic area several times so it's not dirt. The mic does work - I can hear the recording - but it's super low. The right mic works OK.
  • Every now and then, they just refuse to connect. Nothing more annoying than sticking the AirPod into my ear at the beginning of the call and not hearing anything.
  • The sound quality is very average. They just lack the "volume" (I don't mean loudness) of sound. Not just lack of bass, but the lack of 3D sound, if this makes sense.
For such an expensive, brand name product, it's simply unacceptable.

To be fair, I've had Bose in-the-ear headphones before this pair, which also had a major problem - if I made fast movements while listening to music (shoveling snow, working out) the left headphone would periodically cut out for a second or two. Also, the charging case was twice the size of AirPods case. But the sound quality was outstanding, the microphone worked, and connecting and switching between devices was very easy and predictable. All at about $50 less, also from a major brand.

I am not going to get another pair when this one dies. If I can't find an overall better replacement, I'll just get $70 Ankers and call it a day.
 
I’ve had three pairs of AirPods and all work great (the first two I gave to family). I don’t know why you had so much trouble (you were unlucky enough to get a pair that escaped QA?) but it’s the complete opposite of my experience. That would be immensely frustrating though, I’d go for a cheap pair from another brand with all the trouble you’ve had.
 
So I bought some Apple Airpods 2, hoping they would have a better microphone than the Beats, but they are only somewhat better. Is it possible to use the mic built into the phone while bluetooth headphones are connected? Since I don't talk on the phone that often, I'm fine holding it like a microphone.
 
It's really all about ambient noise rejection which is poor and leads to highly compressed garbled sound that randomly cuts out. Noisy cafes, street noise in a city, etc, they don't work. If you're in a relatively quiet area they work fine. I was hoping the AP2 would be a major upgrade over the AP1 but IME it's just slightly better if that.

This is true of all earbuds like this. You really need a boom mic on a headset that also has a good noise rejection algo. Plenty of audio tests on YouTube bear this out. Maybe AI will be able to fix this moving forward, but to the best of my knowledge, nothing really works just yet.

Ended up purchasing a set of Shokz OpenComm 2 as I routinely conduct meetings in noisy areas and they are superb. I can be in areas that are so loud that I end up using my AP2s as 'earplugs' so I can properly hear the other party and they still work well.

That said, looking forward to the update this fall to see if that has an improvement that at least makes them palatable in more moderate noise situations.
 
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I did my test by recording into the Voice Memos app, and listening to the playback. They were all done in a pretty quiet place. Even then, the Beats were poor quality and hard to understand - almost defective. The Phone's built in mic sounded fine, and the Apple wired headphones were pretty good. I tested the airpods in the same place, and they are better than the Beats, (despite costing less.) but noticeably not as good as the wired headphones.

My Mac can already switch mic inputs. But I need the phone to do it for calls. The hardware I have is fine, it's just a matter of switching to the mic that works best.
 
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