macOS Sequoia forces SBC for Bluetooth audio, AAC does not work

Hi,


I am a music producer and I rely on Bluetooth hearing aids for everyday use and for music production on my new Macbook Air.


I noticed that the audio quality when using my hearing aids with my laptop is noticeably worse than when I am connected to my iPhone or my older Windows laptop, so I did a bit of digging around similar issues and found out that this is probably because of the bluetooth audio codec, which I was able to confirm with the console.


My Macbook is forcing my hearing aids to use the SBC codec, which is why the audio quality is so bad. I tried a bunch of different solutions like using the Bluetooth Explorer to enforce AAC. Despite these attempts I haven't been able to get AAC to work at all. This is a problem for me since i really need high quality audio for music production, and I have only had this Macbook for a few days.


Has anyone found any reliable workarounds or solutions to make AAC actually work on their Macbook with bluetooth headphones/hearing aids? Thanks in advance.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 15.5

Posted on Sep 29, 2025 4:44 AM

Reply
3 replies

Sep 30, 2025 5:39 AM in response to Nyhxs

Nyhxs wrote:

Thanks for the response. Do you know if there is any other way to improve the audio quality to match how they work with my other devices?

No. It may have something to do with the Bluetooth protocols in your Macbook Air detecting a hearing aid and forcing SBC only. It may be that the hearing aid vendor has a firmware update for your hearing aids and software to load that update — resulting in AAC exchange from the Mac. Worth checking out.


The new Apple AirPods Pro 3 receive AAC and have a provision for a hearing aid feature. That might be an alternative solution for your music production hearing quality.

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macOS Sequoia forces SBC for Bluetooth audio, AAC does not work

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