Headphone mic makes speaker sound like Dalek…sometimes
July 27, 2020 10:41 AM Subscribe
My wife just got a shiny new MacBook Air. In her Zoom meeting this morning, she was using it with Sony WH/H900N bluetooth headphones. Her co-workers commented that she sounded like she was in a pool. She and I did some tests. Our findings after the jump.
- When she makes a FaceTime call from her Mac to me with the headphones, she sounds like a Dalek.
- When she makes a FaceTime call or regular phone call from her phone to me with the headphones, she sounds fine.
- When she makes a FaceTime call from her Mac with the Mac's internal mic, she sounds fine.
She's tried re-pairing the headphones. No change. Something is clearly going on in the signal path from the headphone's mic to the Mac. Any ideas on how to fix this?
- When she makes a FaceTime call from her Mac to me with the headphones, she sounds like a Dalek.
- When she makes a FaceTime call or regular phone call from her phone to me with the headphones, she sounds fine.
- When she makes a FaceTime call from her Mac with the Mac's internal mic, she sounds fine.
She's tried re-pairing the headphones. No change. Something is clearly going on in the signal path from the headphone's mic to the Mac. Any ideas on how to fix this?
Response by poster: Thanks for those tips.
- Bluetooth core spec is 4.1
- Audio recordings have the Dalek effect, with and without noise-cancelling on, with the headphones on right way round.
- This is using the headphones as the input source. We've confirmed that using the Mac's internal mic does not produce this problem.
posted by adamrice at 11:12 AM on July 27, 2020
- Bluetooth core spec is 4.1
- Audio recordings have the Dalek effect, with and without noise-cancelling on, with the headphones on right way round.
- This is using the headphones as the input source. We've confirmed that using the Mac's internal mic does not produce this problem.
posted by adamrice at 11:12 AM on July 27, 2020
I bet she's falling back into a crappier codec rather than using AAC. To check, go to the bluetooth menu item, highlight the entry for the headphones, and the submenu should have an entry that says "Active Codec:". If it says anything other than AAC or AptX then the codec is likely the issue.
...there's a dev tool called "Bluetooth Explorer" that Apple offers in their Additional Tools suite that can disable Bluetooth audio codecs, thereby forcing her machine to always use a decent codec (info on how to do all this here). If you don't have, or want to create, a Developer account with Apple, there are a few for-pay apps that will do the same thing -- a prominent one was ToothFairy that can help, but please note I haven't used it myself.
posted by aramaic at 11:13 AM on July 27, 2020
...there's a dev tool called "Bluetooth Explorer" that Apple offers in their Additional Tools suite that can disable Bluetooth audio codecs, thereby forcing her machine to always use a decent codec (info on how to do all this here). If you don't have, or want to create, a Developer account with Apple, there are a few for-pay apps that will do the same thing -- a prominent one was ToothFairy that can help, but please note I haven't used it myself.
posted by aramaic at 11:13 AM on July 27, 2020
To check, go to the bluetooth menu item, highlight the entry for the headphones, and the submenu should have an entry that says "Active Codec:(I needed to Alt-click the Bluetooth menu to get this to show up.)
posted by caek at 11:29 AM on July 27, 2020 [1 favorite]
The other day I had to swap my Bluetooth dongle (probably not in play with your situation) and my USB 3.0 dock so that the dongle was in front of the dock connection, rather than behind.
Bit of a long shot but, long story short, it is possible for USB 3.0 connections to interfere with Bluetooth and WiFi. Apple has some other information about this.
Does your wife have other accessories plugged in when she's using her laptop? Maybe a hard drive, or a USB dock? I'd first try unplugging those, and if that works, try repositioning things so the cables/devices/connections are further away.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 11:30 AM on July 27, 2020
Bit of a long shot but, long story short, it is possible for USB 3.0 connections to interfere with Bluetooth and WiFi. Apple has some other information about this.
Does your wife have other accessories plugged in when she's using her laptop? Maybe a hard drive, or a USB dock? I'd first try unplugging those, and if that works, try repositioning things so the cables/devices/connections are further away.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 11:30 AM on July 27, 2020
Response by poster: I appreciate the deep dive on this subject.
This is happening with no other devices plugged in.
I did the thing with Bluetooth Explorer. If the comments on this page are to be believed, using a bluetooth headset for input & output will force the codec to SCO, and this fits my experience. I can get the headphones to use AptX for audio playback, but when I try to use them for input, I see that the codec is SCO. Switching to the internal mic for input switches the codec to AptX. There may not be a perfect solution for this.
posted by adamrice at 5:52 PM on July 27, 2020
This is happening with no other devices plugged in.
I did the thing with Bluetooth Explorer. If the comments on this page are to be believed, using a bluetooth headset for input & output will force the codec to SCO, and this fits my experience. I can get the headphones to use AptX for audio playback, but when I try to use them for input, I see that the codec is SCO. Switching to the internal mic for input switches the codec to AptX. There may not be a perfect solution for this.
posted by adamrice at 5:52 PM on July 27, 2020
If you'll accept "try another set of headphones" I can confirm from very recent experience (literally looking at the shipping boxes right now and trying to decide which to return!) that the mics on following headphones all work fine on a 2020 MacBook Pro: Jabra Elite 85h ($250ish), Jabra Elite 45h ($100), Avantree Aria Pro ($100). Notable deterioration in the sound quality I hear when the mic is active, e.g. if I play music, but no dalek effect for my voice. As far as I know, there's no reason why you shouldn't have a similar experience with recent Sony headphones on any recent Mac, but I haven't tried your headphones.
The 85h and the Aria Pro have active noise cancellation. The Aria Pro has a detachable boom mic, which gives it the best sound quality from the listener's point of view, but the noise cancellation for the listener on the 85hs is way betters. In all cases the codec used by my Mac is SBC without the microphone active, and SCO with it. The 85h has a noise cancellation mode called passthrough, which means it will amplify the sound of your own voice. This gets activated automatically when the mic is active (to stop you shouting?).
posted by caek at 8:09 PM on July 27, 2020
The 85h and the Aria Pro have active noise cancellation. The Aria Pro has a detachable boom mic, which gives it the best sound quality from the listener's point of view, but the noise cancellation for the listener on the 85hs is way betters. In all cases the codec used by my Mac is SBC without the microphone active, and SCO with it. The 85h has a noise cancellation mode called passthrough, which means it will amplify the sound of your own voice. This gets activated automatically when the mic is active (to stop you shouting?).
posted by caek at 8:09 PM on July 27, 2020
Response by poster: For future reference, a 2012 MacBook Pro can connect to the headphone mic using AptX, but I haven't been able to force the new MacBook Air to connect over anything but SCO.
posted by adamrice at 10:15 AM on July 29, 2020
posted by adamrice at 10:15 AM on July 29, 2020
Weird. OK, two more options then:
There was a version of Catalina that seems to have silently nuked AptX, followed by an update that later restored it, so you may have encountered that (check her update status, I think 10.15.4 was the one that restored it, but my Mac is very out of date so ymmv).
Also, the Sony Headphones Connect app can be used to set sound quality -- install it, connect to the phone, then use the app to set "Sound Quality Mode" to "Priority on Sound Quality" instead of "Priority on Stable Connection", then reconnect to Mac.
posted by aramaic at 10:56 AM on July 29, 2020
There was a version of Catalina that seems to have silently nuked AptX, followed by an update that later restored it, so you may have encountered that (check her update status, I think 10.15.4 was the one that restored it, but my Mac is very out of date so ymmv).
Also, the Sony Headphones Connect app can be used to set sound quality -- install it, connect to the phone, then use the app to set "Sound Quality Mode" to "Priority on Sound Quality" instead of "Priority on Stable Connection", then reconnect to Mac.
posted by aramaic at 10:56 AM on July 29, 2020
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Couple of possibilities:
Go to: Apple menu > About This Mac > System Report > Bluetooth. Find the headphones under "Devices". "Bluetooth Core Spec" should be 4.0 or better. If it's not, the headphones are forming a low quality connection with your Mac for some reason.
Are the headphones set as the input source in Sound Preferences?
Does the voice sound bad if you remove Facetime/Zoom as a factor, i.e. does it sound bad if you open Quicktime Player and do New Audio Recording"?
Have you tried using them with ANC manually disabled?
This seems unlikely given the apparent connection with the Mac, but just because I made this mistake with my own new headphones recently: are you sure you always have the headphones on the right way around? Recent headphones mics have spatial noise cancellation and attempt to isolate sounds coming from the front (i.e. your mouth), so if you put them on backwards you sound like you're calling from the bottom of a well.
posted by caek at 10:59 AM on July 27, 2020 [1 favorite]