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I got a pair of Plantronics bluetooth headphones. Work great with my iPhone. Sounds terrible with my Mac, cuts out, sounds choppy, sounds mono to me. A co-worker tells me he has the same problem.

BTW, I'm on Leopard, patched up.

So question is: What is the deal? Is it fixable?

slhck
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9 Answers9

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In case anyone ends up here, like me, experiencing this problem on a more recent Mac OS (in my case Sierra): None of the other solutions here worked for me. Sierra doesn't give the option to connect in headset or headphones mode, and the bitpool setting made no difference.

I finally figured it out: Going to sound preferences and manually changing the sound input device back to Internal Microphone seemed to switch my headset into headphone mode, making the sound quality worlds better.

Note that you can also do this faster by option-clicking on the volume icon in the menu bar.

Hope that helps someone out there.

linesarefuzzy
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    This should be higher up. Apparently this is the only way to turn off A2DP in Sierra. – Adam Shiemke Jan 05 '17 at 21:51
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    I realised the same thing. It's worth pointing out that this appears to do what it says, and uses the computer's internal microphone – meaning that the microphone may catch more background sounds that you would like. – Henrik N Jan 10 '17 at 15:04
  • Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! - This solved my problem right away. Thanks for adding your insight to this old thread :) – Michael Romrell Mar 06 '17 at 19:25
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    In my case, re-pairing the bluetooth headphone helped. – Bhargav Nanekalva May 02 '17 at 12:32
  • This works! BUT it then quickly switches input device BACK to my bluetook device :( – Omar Jun 13 '17 at 15:33
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    This solution worked but every time I turned off and reconnected my headphones the sound input got set back to the headphones. After playing around in the Audio MIDI Setup tool I found a way to fix this by creating an "Aggregate Device" using the plus button in the bottom left. Select only the built in microphone for your new aggregate device and then set the aggregate device as your sound input. The aggregate device will remain selected as the sound input device when connecting your headphones, even after rebooting. – CrimsonChris Sep 23 '17 at 03:43
  • This solution doesn't work for users who do not have a built in mic to switch input to, for ex. Mac Pros and Mac Minis – c.dunlap Oct 19 '17 at 19:44
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    Had the same issue on High Sierra, was listening to music and suddenly the headphones sounded like they were coming through a tin can on a string ... – Doug Watkins Mar 21 '18 at 16:04
  • If you re-pair, you should see the device as Output Device, below Internal Speakers. I only saw it as an Input Device. If it's not there as an Output Device too, switching the mic won't help, it still sounds bad. – VladFr Apr 05 '18 at 12:42
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    Those without a built-in mic may benefit by installing [Loopback](https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/) or similar in order to create a virtual audio device. – Chris Jul 23 '18 at 21:23
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    This should be the selected answer. Still a problem in August 2018. – Greg Hilston Aug 10 '18 at 18:46
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    Just dropping you another thank you. Got a new MBP and my noise cancelling headphones would always drop into a mode where it amplifies outside sounds and mixes it into the audio. I had given up and just used my phone for all audio playback with my headphones. Apparently using the headphone mic as the active mic kept it turned on all the time, so it was always in that "allow ambient noise" mode. – daybreaker Oct 02 '18 at 15:48
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    No longer worked for me after upgrading to Mojave (10.14). – Martijn Oct 09 '18 at 13:39
  • Using an aggregate device in the MIDI tool does "work", but completely disables the system volume control, for me. Not sure why. (High Sierra) – dzajic Oct 12 '18 at 14:50
  • This saved me. I was going crazy with my Bose headset with noise cancelling. The only annoying thing is that I cannot use the mic because of this issue. – Omar Bahareth Dec 24 '18 at 10:59
  • In addition, for me it works only when I spoke so it received sound from the internal microphone. – Ahmad F Feb 19 '19 at 09:38
  • Still have the problem with Mac OS Mojave and this solution worked ! Thx – Marc May 07 '19 at 13:54
  • Worked for me on Mac OS Mojave – Ibrahim Azhar Armar Jun 25 '19 at 12:37
  • This is the right solution; worked for me on Mac OS Sierra, after you change the setting and reconnect the headphones you should be able to adjust the individual sliders for the headphones rather than just the master volume. –  Jun 26 '19 at 23:43
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    And STILL a problem July 2019, 10.14.15 - and a problem because I can't use the built in mic, which limits how far I can get from my laptop during meetings. Is there any fix for this in sight? What causes such horrible sound when the headphone mic is used? – Mattynabib Jul 25 '19 at 17:49
  • Worked again today, Oct 9th, 2019, running macOS Mojave 10.14.6.... annoying but happy to have good audio! – David Lozzi Oct 09 '19 at 12:49
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    Quit any apps that use your Bluetooth headphones' built-in microphone, then try your audio again. In my case, it was an unused google hangouts window. The reason why this happens is If you listen to music or other audio via Bluetooth headphones, and then you open an app that uses the Bluetooth headphones' built-in microphone, the audio quality and volume are reduced. You might also hear static or popping sounds. This happens because Bluetooth has two modes: one for listening to higher-quality audio, and another for both listening and speaking through the microphone. – Gray Ayer Oct 10 '19 at 17:54
  • Awesome, I confirm this is the same on MacOS Mojave as of 10/10/19 on MacBook Pro (15 inch, 2018). This solution is still valid! thanks so much – sla3k Oct 11 '19 at 04:38
  • Thank you so much! I spend many hours trying to resolve this issue (mbp 13, macOS Mojave 10.14.6 + Bowers & Wilkins PX). Thanks to you now everything works well. – Tomasz Szuba Nov 13 '19 at 14:11
  • Would be awesome if OSX had an option to use built-in microphone by default when connecting to airpods – Ivan Denysov Mar 20 '20 at 11:31
  • Is it possible to force OS X (in my case, Catalina) to ALWAYS use the higher quality version of the audio? Or does it have to be tweaked in the way mentioned above every time the microphone becomes active? – Jeff Evans Jan 05 '21 at 21:15
  • This quality upgrade is still not as good as when connected to a phone. – mega_creamery Jan 27 '21 at 14:55
  • Still works in Catalina! "Audio MIDI Setup" is an app. Search for it via Spotlight. – kalmdown Apr 08 '21 at 15:52
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Make sure that when you pair the headset you select "use as wireless headphones" (or similar) instead of "use as headset". The headset profile was designed for phone calls, and you should only use it if you're pairing a headset that does not support A2DP.

Your Plantronics headset probably supports both (if it has a microphone) because some devices switch between the two profiles for music-listening and call-taking.

s4y
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I have a Motorola A2DP headset and on occasion with it pairs in headset mode with my MacBookPro it's very staticy and the sound is sub-par. Usually, by disabling bluetooth and then turning it back on and resyncing everything it works fine again.

It's pretty rare that it ends up with bad sound, but I get the feeling that Apple has pretty crappy bluetooth drivers.

Adam
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Try the method explained by Casey Liss in this post at Casey's Tumblelog.  It tweaks the bitpool setting which makes all the difference in the world.

UPDATE:

The above blog post points to an article on Scott Dier's blog that no longer exists.  However, it can be found on The Wayback Machine here, and it says:

OSX, Snow Leopard, a2dp

So you'd figure with Snow Leopard that sound quality with some a2dp headsets would be better — turns out it isn't.  I was able to 'fix' my sound quality with a Motorola S9 by going to Bluetooth Explorer (option-click on bluetooth to find it) and going into Utilities->Special Options.  I changed the bitpool minimum to 40 and the sound quality is MUCH better.  Sounds like its a problem with negotiation between this headset and OS X.  If you set the value too high OS X will let you know that the headset rejected the codec settings.  I'd figure that 40 is ok for me, but might not be ok for others — use this at your own risk.

Posted by Scott Dier at 11:39 AM (Wednesday, October 7, 2009)

Scott - Слава Україні
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peroty
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Ok You are on Leopard which supports A2DP, as opposed to non-stereo on Tiger so that should not be the problem.

Some headphones have a headset mode and get connected in that mode incorrectly and sound awful, so you should endure that your headphones are not being connected in headset mode.

You should also try your headphones with another computer to ensure that you bluetooth adapter is not faulty.

Bruce McLeod
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  • The headphones work fine with the iPhone, and most Macs have built-in Bluetooth, so testing with another system shouldn't be a problem. – Andrew Scagnelli Jul 29 '09 at 17:31
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While I tried a lot of these options that everyone is presenting as solutions, I ended up fixing my headphones a different way. I went to system preferences on Mac and then went to Bluetooth. From there I right clicked on the device (Beats Solo3 Wireless) that was having issues and clicked "remove". After I did that, I reconnected them and now they work fine. My initial problem with the headphones wasn't on an individual platform rather a problem on all platforms within my mac, which includes Spotify, Youtube, FaceTime and anything else you can think of. This will give you another option to try and I hope it helps.

Joshua Stanzikle
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I was having the same issue with a pair of Coby E7 bluetooth headphones where they sounded muffled. I went to system preferences and realized that while the audio was playing through the headphones they weren't listed under Audio -> Output as the output source.

I decided to try and disconnect the headphones by going to System Preferences -> Bluetooth and clicked the "X" button to remove them. I rebooted the headphones and repaired them and the issue is resolved and now the headphones are listed as the output source under sound.

Hope this helps.

Kelly Andrew Park
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The top answer by linesarefuzzy worked partly for me.  In addition to switching to internal microphone, I also had to disable dictating (otherwise it had no effect).

To disable dictating, go to: System preferences -> Keyboard -> Dictating, and switch dictating to off.

Scott - Слава Україні
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Audunnw
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If you have SoundFlower installed, try uninstalling it.  That solved this for me.

Use the SoundFlower uninstaller script located in the original SoundFlower install .dmg file.

Scott - Слава Україні
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Dom Martin
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