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Show HN: A macOS app to prevent sound quality degradation on AirPods

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Re: Show HN: A macOS app to prevent sound quality degradation on AirPods

#191

Post by DidYaWipe »

Osiris wrote: post #75

This is really a Bluetooth issue. The same happens with any headphones that have a mic on any OS. When Bluetooth mode is switched from Headphones to Headset (with mic), only much lower quality audio codes are used. Does anyone know if Bluetooth 6 adds support for higher quality codes for Headset? It's a big issue, in my opinion.

Sounds more like a shitty-software issue. The Shazam function should turn the Bluetooth mics off after the song is identified. Why does it just leave them on?

Isn't that obvious, or is there some aspect to this I'm not aware of (I care about sound quality, so I don't use AirPods)?

Re: Show HN: A macOS app to prevent sound quality degradation on AirPods

#192

Post by trial3 »

car wrote: post #180

This is an interesting topic for a hearing aid user like me. For FaceTime and other calls on my computer or iPad/iPhone, I always physically switch from my Bluetooth hearing aids to AirPods, since the hearing aid microphone isn't that good for calls (other party has problems hearing what I say). Now, this could be a bandwidth issue. Apple Audio MIDI Setup shows the hearing aid microphone as an 8kHz/16bit mono input d…

yes - user-controlled microphone switching is my #1 iOS feature request

i find it very frustrating i can’t use my airpods on calls at all with full fidelity audio using a wired or built-in iPhone microphone, even though lots of the time on long calls i’m pacing around holding my phone anyway

i’m speculating, but iirc apple did put a lot of thought into the design, placement, and noise cancellation for airpods that just might not have been done for your hearing aids. an 8kHz sampling rate can still reproduce frequencies up to 4kHz, which is much higher than you’re probably speaking!

if you’re on a laptop, maybe try recording the audio yourself with both to get a sense of how they might sound and what (macOS) combinations work best

Re: Show HN: A macOS app to prevent sound quality degradation on AirPods

#193

Post by iknowstuff »

viraptor wrote: post #87
Osiris wrote: post #75

This is really a Bluetooth issue. The same happens with any headphones that have a mic on any OS. When Bluetooth mode is switched from Headphones to Headset (with mic), only much lower quality audio codes are used. Does anyone know if Bluetooth 6 adds support for higher quality codes for Headset? It's a big issue, in my opinion.

It was a Bluetooth issue years ago. Now it's only an Apple issue where it can't use a more decent codec. On Linux you can choose the mSBC codec and get decent two-way quality on a modern headset.

idk man airpods do switch to an AAC variant called AAC-ELD for bidirectional audio but thats still compressed to hell. better than SBC but not as good as unidirectional AAC.

I had high hopes for BLE Audio but that seems to be stalled

Re: Show HN: A macOS app to prevent sound quality degradation on AirPods

#194

Post by Vegenoid »

ZekeSulastin wrote: post #112
Vegenoid wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do the same - if an app is "free" but has In-app purchases, I'll simply avoid it, even if I'd be willing to pay some price for it if it works. I don't have time to download every app, open it, and navigate to its pricing page to see how much it costs. You should be able to see the name, description, and price of all the in-app purchases from the App Store.

I’m not sure about the Mac OS side, but at least on iOS there’s a specific entry in the information section for in-app purchases that can be expanded into exactly that pricing list.

Well there you go! Thank you!

Re: Show HN: A macOS app to prevent sound quality degradation on AirPods

#196

Post by [deleted] »

isoprophlex wrote: post #5

> it's not one time payment because I don't know what would the right price be for supporting an app for years to come and still have people willing to pay for it I dislike this very, very, very much. You do realize that with this attitude, we'll soon be bickering with our toilets to please let the seat down without making a small 4$/month in-loo purchase first?

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: A macOS app to prevent sound quality degradation on AirPods

#197

Post by ClassyJacket »

Osiris wrote: post #75

This is really a Bluetooth issue. The same happens with any headphones that have a mic on any OS. When Bluetooth mode is switched from Headphones to Headset (with mic), only much lower quality audio codes are used. Does anyone know if Bluetooth 6 adds support for higher quality codes for Headset? It's a big issue, in my opinion.

Why is Bluetooth so bad? This, plus the literal second of latency to my car's speakers.

All these problems are solved by headphones with proprietary wireless dongles and they work great, so why can't Bluetooth incorporate those improvements so we can get them on other devices than desktop PCs?

Re: Show HN: A macOS app to prevent sound quality degradation on AirPods

#198

Post by shiroiushi »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #197
Osiris wrote: post #75

This is really a Bluetooth issue. The same happens with any headphones that have a mic on any OS. When Bluetooth mode is switched from Headphones to Headset (with mic), only much lower quality audio codes are used. Does anyone know if Bluetooth 6 adds support for higher quality codes for Headset? It's a big issue, in my opinion.

Why is Bluetooth so bad? This, plus the literal second of latency to my car's speakers. All these problems are solved by headphones with proprietary wireless dongles and they work great, so why can't Bluetooth incorporate those improvements so we can get them on other devices than desktop PCs?

Also, wireless subwoofers (that come on many consumer TV speaker systems these days) don't have this latency problem either. You just plug them in and they sync to the system and work transparently. They can't have any noticeable latency, or else the bass would be out-of-sync with either the rest of the audio, or if they slowed down the audio to account for latency, then all the sound would be out-of-sync with the video you're probably watching with it.

Re: Show HN: A macOS app to prevent sound quality degradation on AirPods

#199

Post by therein »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #197
Osiris wrote: post #75

This is really a Bluetooth issue. The same happens with any headphones that have a mic on any OS. When Bluetooth mode is switched from Headphones to Headset (with mic), only much lower quality audio codes are used. Does anyone know if Bluetooth 6 adds support for higher quality codes for Headset? It's a big issue, in my opinion.

Why is Bluetooth so bad? This, plus the literal second of latency to my car's speakers. All these problems are solved by headphones with proprietary wireless dongles and they work great, so why can't Bluetooth incorporate those improvements so we can get them on other devices than desktop PCs?

We currently have Bluetooth headphones in the market that are not even using the current spec/API properly. For some of them, the hardware is perfectly fine, if they did use the API correctly, the experience could be almost as good as AirPods are on OSX.
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