AirPods sound quality issue

It looks like the program that the AirPods are interacting with may be the determining factor of whether you get SCO or AAC in your connection. I just connected to a BlueJeans video conference from my 2017 iMac and was happy to see that my AirPods were connected to the conference through AAC. So when I had a chance, I put myself on mute in that videoconference and brought up Skype. On Skype I called Test Call (which allows you to record your own voice to check your microphones and sound quality) and saw that my AirPods were now using SCO. So I quit Skype and went back to BlueJeans and once again my AirPods were connected using AAC!

Is this something that's fixed by High Sierra?

I had wondered if this was a software limitation in the Bluetooth stack, or if a Mac would need different radio hardware to avoid low quality SCO audio when the mic is live.

Sorry, but apparently I am missing some cues.

Is there hope that a future FW will resolve this issue or must one try and get a replacement from an Apple Store?

I travel a lot like China, LA, etc., and only 2 months in started to query why calls were so distorted when using AirPods with my iP7 or my Apple Watch cellular series 3.

I did an online chat using the Apple support app and was told to reinstall iOS 11 on my iP7. I do not see that as a solution but I appreciate the contents of this thread.

My issues appear to be resolved with replacement AirPods. The local store replaced the left one first and had to order the second one that arrived the next day.

It may have been the case that only the left one was defective because I immediately had fewer problems when using the replacement left AirPod.

That's good to hear. From looking at this board it seems that when the AirPods have problems connecting to a phone it is usually resolved by a change of hardware. When the complaint is that the AirPods use the lower quality SCO codec rather than the AAC codec, replacing the AirPods doesn't seem to help. In this latter case, my experience has been that the choice of codec depends on the application whose output is going to the AirPods. On the three different Mac computers that I use, a 2012 Mac Pro, a 2013 MacBook Pro and and 2017 iMac, all running OS 10.12 Sierra, Skype connects to my AirPods through the SCO codec while Bluejeans (a teleconferencing solution used by many organizations, though less so by individuals) connects through the AAC codec. So the complaints may need to go to Skype and less so, in this case, to Apple.

Yup just bought some and the audio quality when on Mac is horrendous. Sounds like the sound is coming through a paper cup, then through a cell phone.
I believe it's mostly because Apple did create the software and user interface but a third party company actually produced them and that could be a possible cause but still unsure what to do.

For two-way audio you cannot use the A2DP profile with the AAC codec. To use the microphone of the AirPods at the same time, the SCO-method needs to be used. Unfortunately SCO is not a fixed codec but a transfer method - Synchronous Connection Oriented. SCO just specifies a minimum codec which should be available for all HFP (Hands Free Profile) capable devices: CVSD. Depending on the bluetooth controller in your Mac, SCO can also be used to transport a wideband speech codec. Here the mandatory codec is mSBC.

Unfortunately macOS doesn't tell you which codec is actually used and only states "Active codec: SCO". As far as I understood this, the availability of the mSBC codec depends heavily on the bluetooth hardware. If the bluetooth chipset in your Mac doesn't support mSBC, macOS can not support it - ever. The AirPods however seem to support it from day one. At least mine do and iOS says that I have AirPods hardware version 1.0.

Btw, mSBC is also not as good as A2DP with AAC codec. mSBC can only support sample rates up to 16 kHz which is still double the rate of the CVSD codec.

I double-checked the output of iOS logs and indeed my iPhone 7 is also using the mSBC audio codec. From the logs:

"Setting SCO audio codec to mSBC at sample rate of 16000 for device <private>"

This is exactly what my 2016 MacBook Pro is doing. But as I mentioned above, this can only work if the built-in Bluetooth adapter is able to stream mSBC. Otherwise you are stuck with CVSD which sounds more or less like the plain old telephone service (8 kHz sample rate).

I seems the audio quality is getting bad when the microphone is being used.
On macOS I found a workaround to select the internal microphone as input and not the Airpods. So now at least the audio quality is as normal.

That is not a normal issue where you need to go through that work around. I would go to the Apple Store or call support as I use mine for both my phone and watch/cellular and there are no such issues. Considering you paid good money for those go through support so they can work as intended.

Same issues here guys, i get it when i DJ and live stream it via OBS (open broadcast software) and use Djay pro. i have my airpods as headphones and the quality is good when using Djay pro but the moment i open OBS it goes to awful quality. Hope they get it fixed soon.

Doing a quicktime screen recording using the AirPods mic records the voice like it's an am radio. I'm hoping this is not the quality everyone hears through this mic as I often use it for FaceTime audio calls. And if not it would be nice if screen recordings sounded better.

Re: AirPods Bad Sound Quality on Mac

Since you have now tested this on all iPod and MacBooks (does this include the MacBook Pros and Airs?) you should provide Apple with your research and tell them: Feedback - macOS - Apple

I have exactly the same issue