AirPods Bad Sound Quality on Mac

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Level 1

10 points

AirPods Bad Sound Quality on Mac

Hello all!

I'm having that issue with bad sound quality on MacOS Catalina with brand new Airpods Pro. When a program uses the microphone while I'm listening to music, say in my browser or Spotify, the audio output becomes VERY low quality all of a sudden (I'm talking OLD PHONE RECEIVER quality right here, folks)

Anyway, I've tried to switch the input from the airpods to my mac instead: no dice. I've tried turning them off and on, again, guys, I tried that.

So, if it's a hardware issue, that's REALLY bad. Very disappointing indeed.

If it's a software issue, it's disappointing also, but at least y'all can help me do something about it probably.

Cheers,

Fred

MacBook Pro 13”, macOS 10.14

Posted on May 2, 2020 11:31 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

borja274

Level 1

15 points

May 5, 2020 1:33 AM in response to fredmercy

Fred, I finally made it works. I did the following:

Do SMC reset and check.

https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT201295

Reset NVRAM –

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

Hope this helps.

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Answer 2

borja274

Level 1

15 points

May 4, 2020 3:02 AM in response to fredmercy

I'm also experience this problem with new Airpods Pro and this Macintosh’s exact model number:

It works perfectly with the iPad, in menu it show correctly, so does not seem to be a pairing problem. I've repair couple times just in case.

Quality is poor when ir works, but usually it stop reproducing sound although it appears still paired. If I change from airpod to mac and back it works for 5 seconds.

Sometimes changing input starts working for a while with robotic sound.

Can someone help with the issue?

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Answer 3

fredmercy Author

Level 1

10 points

May 4, 2020 12:17 PM in response to borja274

Hi Borja,

Glad to know I'm not alone!

Here's something that might help Apple developers & troubleshooters somewhat: I seem to be unable to change the sound quality in the Audio MIDI Setup panel.

Click another option does nothing at all.

I've had luck yesterday by unpairing and pairing again, but as soon as I entered a video chat with my colleagues (which because of the current situation happens A LOT!) the sound quality dropped again.

(more info: the browser is Chrome, the video service is Google's Hangout. I don't recall testing another browser right now, but I'm pretty sure the same happens with Firefox)

Thank you so much for your help... anyone

Cheers,

Fred

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