Discovers a secret "Vaporwave Mode", calls it a bug, not a feature. Heretic!
AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM
61–70 of 170 posts
Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM
#62Happens to my Bose QC35s quite often. Part of the issue is that the mic cannot be enabled when full quality audio is active. I guess this is a bandwidth limitation. My issue stems from pulse audio saying that high quality mode is not available though. Common problem though. Not exclusive to AirPods.
Meh, its not really a bandwidth limitation on modern Bluetooth devices, only that it negotiates a different Bluetooth profle. The high quality stereo audio mode (A2DP) has no support for microphones in the spec and is usually highly buffered, so it switches over to the headset profile (HSP). This mode is designed for compatibility all the way back to your old Motorola Razr flip phone, so it doesn't exactly have the highest quality audio options.
If we were to really look at it as a pure bandwidth concept, Bluetooth has plenty of bandwidth to handle high-quality, low-latency, compressed audio streams between two devices. There just isn't a profile written into the spec to handle it, so there's no standard way of negotiating that between a headset and a device.
Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting. On Windows 10, it shows a in/out "Headset (AirPods Hands-Free)" and an out only "Headphones (AirPods Audio)." So this transition would be very easy for the user to see. However, I've as yet been unable to get a straight answer on what profile the "Headphones" mode is actually using.
A2DP SBC. Apple products that implement AAC over A2DP only do so on iOS devices (and in only limited cases), and also do not implement anything else (such as any form of AptX, or LDAC).
Oddly enough macOS supports AptX.
Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM
#64I figured I’d ask this here: my AirPods have never been what I’d call “perfect”, and I’m trying to figure out whether these are fundamental issues with AirPods or if I have a bad pair. Is it normal for AirPods to ignore double taps on them 50% of the time (it’s worse if I try to use Siri, which almost never works, and better if I try to play/pause but still not great)? My AirPods also take up to thirty seconds to swi…
I also find them to be incredibly slow to connect to my iPhone — frequently necessitating going into system preferences->Bluetooth on the iPhone and clicking on the AirPods before the connection finally happens ... it’s a complete mystery to me whether they will be connected when I pull my phone out and put them on at any given time (seems worse with Xs than before - though Xs seems worse generally in all network con…
Which is ironic, because when they came out and people (including myself) compared them to other wireless BT devices, we were lambasted because "Apple finally got this right - no more hoping that your Bluetooth device will pair, no waiting, it just works!".
Not so much.
Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM
#65You may find value in this Mac app that disables the microphone input channel on AirPods as part of pairing them, which should in theory permanently resolve your issue: https://c-command.com/toothfairy/ (Note that I neither know how they’re doing it nor have I tried to reverse engineer it. Works well for me in non-VMWare scenarios!)
That’s great! This kind of app is priced perfectly for what it does. I’m going to give it a try this week, thanks for the rec!
I use an external microphone anyways, so on my Mac I never use the AirPods as an input. I do on the iPhone and iPad, but not on the Mac.
Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM
#66I will also repeat what has been said about twelve times thus far: Enabling microphone makes Bluetooth headsets turn into pure shit. Guess what 5.0 finally allows as per spec? You can use any codec you want for telephony mode, including 44.1 stereo + 44.1 mono SBC. Guess what Apple does not implement, and guess what every 5.0 headset I've seen so far also does not implement? Sigh. Bluetooth is 20 years old this year,…
My reaction to reading that this happened when the microphone was turned on was also a mental "well yeah, welcome to Bluetooth". I have literally shifted my rating scale for crap technology completely to make room for Bluetooth to be far enough below everything else. The nice part is a monkey brain interprets that as everything getting better, so I am generally more content with software and tech in general. So, than…
Guess what the number one car infotainment complaint is...
I don't have a public source, but for some vehicles bluetooth problems are the number one complain OVERALL.
Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also find them to be incredibly slow to connect to my iPhone — frequently necessitating going into system preferences->Bluetooth on the iPhone and clicking on the AirPods before the connection finally happens ... it’s a complete mystery to me whether they will be connected when I pull my phone out and put them on at any given time (seems worse with Xs than before - though Xs seems worse generally in all network con…
Can you use the play widget on the control center? That’s how I pair mine whenever they are acting iffy. Simply 3D Touch the music/play widget. Click on the little triangle on the top right and select your AirPods. That works for me 100% of the time.
Ditto. Fast and easy, never had an issue on iPhone or iPad from control center. Have only had weird issues from time to time on the Mac.
Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM
#68Headphone jack? Honestly I just hate Bluetooth. I've had it work really well. Been completely pleased. But I've also seen a never-ending raft of this crap. I just don't want to bother. I'll take the wire thanks
I prefer wires in almost every situation (just upgraded to a 16 port switch because I have enough wired devices in the house for it now), especially for audio... but in this case I’m in meetings a lot, I listen to songs sometimes in between, and I move around my office quite a bit. I struggled with a decent USB headset for a while, but after five or so times almost breaking my computer from moving my arm and catching the cord (thus yanking the computer off the desk), I started a journey down the path of many different Bluetooth options.
Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM
#69A dozen comments that this happens because the microphone is turned on, but nobody is asking why vagrant is turning the microphone on?
Vagrant is using VirtualBox under the hood, and presumably the default VB config is to let the VM use two-way audio, so it preemptively opens both the output and mic channel in case the VM needs it.
I have so many questions, but will not ask them because I don't think I'll like the answers.
Re: AirPods get stuck in low-quality 16 kHz audio mode when starting a VM
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've never had the left half of my keyboard crap out when I plugged it into a USB port. I have never gotten both the input, and the output half of a bluetooth headset to work on Windows 10. But that's understandable, since I'm sure Microsoft is strapped for resources, and has more important things to work on - like the bricking the data in My Documents in an OS update. Even if you don't want the microphone to work, g…
I’ve never gotten input and output from a Bluetooth headset working on MacOS, either.
I use my AirPods everyday for input and output on macOS and it works fine for me.