Yes, your expensive wireless headphones sound worse on Windows — here’s why

Wi-fi headphones are handy to be used throughout a number of gadgets, together with your cellphone, pill, or pc. Nevertheless, you may discover that your headphones’ sound high quality varies relying on the linked system. Counting on a wi-fi connection between headphones and a Home windows PC may end up in shockingly poor sound high quality. In case your wi-fi cans sound worse on Home windows than on different working methods, you are not alone.

All of it comes right down to the constraints of legacy Bluetooth requirements. Older Bluetooth connections have bandwidth limits that make it unimaginable to ship each high-quality audio and microphone recording concurrently. If your wireless headphones are mistaken for a headset, their sound high quality is instantly degraded. Fortunately, there are steps you possibly can take proper now to make sure you’re getting the perfect audio doable.

Home windows makes use of Bluetooth Basic Audio

Reverting to low-quality mono sound in sure conditions

For many gadgets, Home windows makes use of Bluetooth Basic Audio for reference to wi-fi headphones. Earlier than the debut of Bluetooth LE Audio (which we’ll clarify later), Bluetooth Basic Audio was merely generally known as Bluetooth. You’ve got seemingly used it for years to attach wi-fi gadgets with each other, as Bluetooth Basic Audio was developed greater than 20 years in the past.

Bluetooth know-how, this dated, is sure to come back with limitations. Crucially, Bluetooth Basic Audio makes use of a number of knowledge and energy to transmit audio. This implies the usual cannot transmit high-fidelity audio and file microphone inputs concurrently. When used as a headset, Home windows 11 makes use of the Arms-Free Profile (HFP) for operation, which allows lower-quality sound playback and simultaneous audio recording.

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In the meantime, when Bluetooth headphones are linked to a Home windows 11 PC strictly to be used as an audio output system, the Superior Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) is energetic. The A2DP helps stereo audio transmission with codecs like SBC, AAC, or aptX. Any system that helps Bluetooth Basic Audio and A2DP should help SBC because the default audio codec, however {hardware} producers can tack on further help for codecs like aptX Adaptive, LDAC, or LDHC.

When the Arms-Free Profile is in use, your wi-fi headphones revert to low-fidelity mono audio. You will solely get one channel of audio and lose help for high-fidelity Bluetooth codecs and spatial audio. In a support document, Microsoft itself reveals that when HFP is in use, “the audio high quality remains to be nearer to an AM radio than it’s to the CD high quality audio that Bluetooth supplies when not utilizing the microphone.”

This is what you are able to do about it

Manually disable mic inputs to allow higher codecs

Home windows 11 usually journeys up with wi-fi headphones as a result of they usually embody microphones, main the working system to deal with them as headsets mistakenly. In fact, chances are you’ll need to make use of a wi-fi pair of headphones like a headset for gaming or video calls. But when Home windows 11 acknowledges your headphones as a headset if you’re listening to music, you will hear low-fidelity mono audio.

With out changing Bluetooth Basic Audio completely, there isn’t a excellent answer to Home windows’ dealing with of wi-fi headphones. Nevertheless, there are a number of steps you possibly can take. Should you’re affected by this concern, you primarily have to drive Home windows 11 to disregard your headphones’ built-in microphone.

To do that, open the Settings app, find the System -> Sound tab, and click on Extra sound settings. From there, swap to the Recording tab within the small window that seems, and choose your wi-fi headphones. Proper-click the title of your headphones and click on Disable. Wait to your headphones to reconnect, or manually power-cycle them to complete. This can disable your wi-fi headphones as a recording system, forcing Home windows 11 to make use of the higher-fidelity A2DP.

How Microsoft is fixing the issue

Home windows 11 is now utilizing Bluetooth LE Audio

For newer gadgets, Microsoft is fixing this longtime Home windows downside—which predates Home windows 11—as soon as and for all. Bluetooth LE Audio is an alternative choice to Basic Audio that leverages Bluetooth Low Energy radios to ship versatile new audio profiles with decrease battery consumption. As an alternative of A2DP and HFP, the Telephony and Media Profile (TMAP) handles high-fidelity music playback and voice recording concurrently.

With the TMAP energetic, Bluetooth LE Audio in Home windows 11 can present as much as 32kHz pattern charges for audio playback whereas enabling microphone use. As such, Home windows 11 customers will not want to fret about whether or not the A2DP or HFP is energetic. There’s only one catch: you want a supported pc, a supported pair of headphones, and a supported model of Home windows 11 to make use of Bluetooth LE Audio.

You possibly can examine Microsoft’s support document to search out out in case your PC helps Bluetooth LE Audio. It is also a good suggestion to ensure your pc is up to date (you want Home windows 11 model 24H2 or newer) and you’ve got the most recent Bluetooth audio drivers out of your PC producer. As of now, not all Home windows 11 PCs or wi-fi headphones help Bluetooth LE Audio.

For a bit longer, Home windows customers will nonetheless want to ensure their headphones aren’t being registered as headsets. Nevertheless, Microsoft says it expects “most new cellular PCs that launch beginning in late 2025 could have help from the manufacturing unit.” A longstanding Home windows wi-fi audio flaw will not be a serious downside for much longer.