Enable High Quality mode on your headphones (Updated for macOS Catalina)

change-codec.md

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.

Find out what codec you're using

1. Play a song on your headphones
2. Option (⌥) click the Bluetooth button at the top of your screen
3. If you're using AAC or aptX, you can stop here—those are the highest quality codecs.

Change your codec to AAC or aptX

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.

1. Head over to Apple's Developer Downloads

2. Search for additional tools and download Additional Tools for XCode 11.dmg

3. Open the dmg, and open Bluetooth Explorer

4. Click on Tools > Audio Options and change your audio codec to the following settings:

   • Enable AAC
   • Force use of aptX
   

5. Disconnect your Bluetooth headset, reconnect it, and while some music is playing, inspect your codec. It should now show either AAC or aptX.

   

Squeezing the most out of AAC

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.

I'm on Sonoma 14.4, sudo defaults write bluetoothaudiod "Enable AptX codec" -bool true not works.

17:29:33.220607+0800	bluetoothd	A2DP configured at 44.1 KHz. Codec: AAC-LC, VBR max: 256 kbps. 1 frames * (12+744) bytes = 756 per RTP (max=879) every 23.22 ms

sigh, this no longer works. using the sennheiser momentum 4, which does not support AAC but only aptX. I probably need to buy a sony headphone to try叹息，这不再起作用了。使用森海塞尔Momentum 4，不支持AAC，仅支持aptX。我可能需要买一个索尼耳机来尝试

I recently purchased the Sennheiser Momentum 4 headphones. it work with the 44.1 AAC LC codec on my MacBook Air M3. My system’s version is 15.1.1.

sigh, this no longer works. using the sennheiser momentum 4, which does not support AAC but only aptX. I probably need to buy a sony headphone to try叹息，这不再起作用了。使用森海塞尔Momentum 4，不支持AAC，仅支持aptX。我可能需要买一个索尼耳机来尝试

Perhaps you could try connecting your Mac using a cable and configure the MIDI setup to support a maximum sampling rate of 96 kHz.