Score:1

Is it possible to have a Bluetooth audio device in HFS (Output/Input) with high quality audio?

cn flag

I just purchased a pair of Sony WH-1000XM4s and have been impressed with the audio playback (music, calls).

However after spending an hour of configuration on Kubuntu 20.04, I cannot find any way of using the headphones with HFS mode and having high quality playback and recording.

Therefore as a current workaround I am using a separate laptop microphone as audio input and the bluetooth headset for audio output.

Is this a limitation of bluetooth, the distro, linux drivers?

Is there no way to hack this to have good quality?

Kubuntu Version: 20.04

Bluez Version: 5.53-0ubuntu3.3

Pulseaudio Version: 13.99.1

Pulse Audio Profile: A2DP Sink: LDAC

ChanganAuto avatar
us flag
Not, not possible. Either HiFi Stereo without mic (A2DP) or Mono + mic.
Score:1
se flag

In Ubuntu 21.10 the support for mSBC (a 16 kHz monaural configuration of the SBC codec) for the HFP profile got fixed. Not sure if it works out-of-the-box, but it's working for me and I'm very happy with the quality in my conference calls.

Just make sure you install pulseaudio-module-bluetooth:

sudo apt install --reinstall pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

Then check what codec is being assigned to your headset by running:

pactl list | grep -A2 "bluetooth.codec"

If you get something this in the output:

bluetooth.codec = "mSBC"

then congratulations, you're now using the mSBC codec!

Jean avatar
ee flag
I am using 21.10 and a Bose QC 35 II. I can connect the headset to my laptop. I tweaked the my ~/.config/pulse/default.pa to get the autoswitch working. now it works fine in slack huddles, but in zoom I still sound like a robot which, I assume, means the mSBC codec isn't applied. the command you provided does list mSBC both when connected with slack and zoom. any idea what I should be looking for ?
shmu avatar
sr flag
@Jean what tweak did you use in ~/.config/pulse/default.pa ?
Jean avatar
ee flag
.include /etc/pulse/default.pa .nofail unload-module module-bluetooth-policy .fail .ifexists module-bluetooth-policy.so load-module module-bluetooth-policy auto_switch=2 #load-module module-bluetooth-policy .endif .ifexists module-bluetooth-discover.so load-module module-bluetooth-discover .endif
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