If you're using a high-end bluetooth headset on your Macbook Pro it's likely your mac is using an audio codec which favors battery efficiency over high quality. This results in a drastic degradation of sound, the SBC codec is the likely culprit, read more about it here.
- Play a song on your headphones
- Option (⌥) click the Bluetooth button at the top of your screen
- If you're using AAC or aptX, you can stop here—those are the highest quality codecs.
UPDATE: It looks like Apple has silently dropped support for aptX, leaving only AAC
You'll need to download Apple's Bluetooth Explorer in order to change codecs.
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Head over to Apple's Developer Downloads
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Search for
additional toolsand downloadAdditional Tools for XCode 11.dmg
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Open the
dmg, and openBluetooth Explorer
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Click on
Tools > Audio Optionsand change your audio codec to the following settings:- Enable AAC
- Force use of aptX
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Disconnect your Bluetooth headset, reconnect it, and while some music is playing, inspect your codec. It should now show either AAC or aptX.
You can increase the AAC bitrate in Audio Options but be sure to keep an eye on the graphs. The retransmission percentage is roughly equivalent to packet loss, and if you increase the bitrate too high your audio will start cutting out:
The retransmission rate is a function of distance and interference, and you'll need to disconnect/reconnect on each attempt before you find the sweet spot.
@jamesdh
Maybe a difference in headphones, but that's just a guess. It could be a bluetooth signal quality issue, since it is generally going to negotiate the connection based on the available bandwidth/signal quality it sees. Make sure the headphones are near the computer when connecting, and that there aren't a lot of electronics around causing interference. Otherwise, maybe the headphone's bluetooth just has a weaker signal.
The log entry that I cut-and-pasted before is from my M1 MacBook Air w/Monterey. My older (~4 y/o) work-issued MacBook Pro w/Catalina also connected at 256kbs. I have two sets of over-the-ear headphones, and both connect at 256kbs. One set are the Sennheiser HD350BT, and the other are a more obscure brand (FALWEDI S6) that I got on Amazon for $35 -- one of those budget-priced products on Amazon where you see the same product model under 10 different company names. But for the price, they are actually quite good, although too bass-heavy for my taste, which is why I eventually splurged a bit more on the more neutral Sennheisers (but got those on-sale, at least). The FALWEDI unit supports both aptX (first-gen only, not HD/LC) and AAC, which was a pleasant surprise, since it didn't even mention AAC in the product info -- it only mentioned aptX and SBC. The Sennheiser supports the same, plus aptX-LL (but not HD).
In any case, both of these units are over-the-ear headphones, and have a stronger bluetooth signal than any others that I've owned. Over the years, I've had many in-ear bluetooth headphones, and all of them cut-out when I leave the computer in the living room while walking into another room. But I've stopped using in-ear units, and these two over-the-ear units are the first to stay connected when I go into the other room -- so they do seem to have stronger signals, for what it's worth.