Audio quality drops when talking on discord

[Maayu]

Hey,

I was searching through websites and couldn't find a fix for "I think" quite common issue. 

I have HyperX could mix Bluetooth headphones connected to xiaomi 10t phone (through Bluetooth obviously) and when I connect to voice chat server or private call quality of the audio everywhere drops significantly. It happens only while headphones are connected through Bluetooth, when I wire them up it works normally.

I'm using in-built headphones mic not the one you can plug-in. Also when I disconnect from discord VC server phone lose connectivity to headphones, I need to turn off and on bluetooth to fix it (headphones are showing as connected to phone, but don't receive sound [signal] from phone).

 

Specs etc:

- Xiaomi 10t

- MIUI version 12.5.3

- Android version 11RKQ1.200826.002

- headset HyperX Cloud mix Bluetooth

 

I tried:

- "Adjust media sound in multiple apps" in sound assistant, cool feature but it ain't it

- installing older version of discord with communication and call mode, interestingly call mode broke things further, since only discord sound was working...

- fiddling with OpenSl es (off/on) in discord options, didn't feel any change at all, maybe mic was working differently?

 

I think the best bet is in developer mode Bluetooth settings, the problem is everything I change won't stick.. beside changing MAP version. I assume if the options are there then my phone should be able to use them, no? And even if my headphones wouldn't be compatible with them, they should still change, but they don't..

 

[Maayu]

I was trying to record how it behaves using screen recorder, but interestingly after I connect to discord screen recorder stops catching sound and after I disconnect it pick it up again.

 

Edit.1 I tried recording with "AZ screen recorder" and (which I should have expected but didn't) there was no problem with recording at all besides some glitches while connecting and disconnecting from discord VC the sound is same through whole video I made. Of course only for video not for me. I think this further proofs that the problem is on the bluetooth side or it's settings. I read somewhere that it's done to decrease battery usage. 

 

Edit. 2 I think I found out why settings in developer don't stick. My headphones are forcing settings to stay the way they are (if I'm not mistaken). When I change settings disconnect and connect headphones. 

 

 

[jaslion]

That is normal. Bleutooth doesn't have the bandwidth to have max quality audio in signal and mic out signal. So it lowers the quality to still be able to do it.

[TheEpicDuck]

The Bluetooth headset I use has 2 devices built in and when I'm in a call it's locked to a hands free mode which has way worse quality. Not sure how to fix it on mobile I'm afraid

 

[jaslion]

4 minutes ago, TheEpicDuck said:

The Bluetooth headset I use has 2 devices built in and when I'm in a call it's locked to a hands free mode which has way worse quality. Not sure how to fix it on mobile I'm afraid

 

You can't since it's a hardware limit of older bluetooth that doesn't use special codecs/tech sadly

[Pixelfie]

That always happens due to BT bandwidth limitations. On Windows it will be even worse.

 

Technically BT5 should be capable, but for some reason it's still not being fully used by the codec

[Maayu]

9 minutes ago, jaslion said:

That is normal. Bleutooth doesn't have the bandwidth to have max quality audio in signal and mic out signal. So it lowers the quality to still be able to do it.

Is it? So wouldn't it mean when I'm using voice access with my headphones walk 10 meter from phone and say command while listen to music it would make my sound quality go down unless it uses phone mic, but I'm 10 meter from it so it shouldn't pick my voice, no? So what if quality of sound doesn't drop and my phone is picking up my command?

[jaslion]

29 minutes ago, Maayu said:

Is it? So wouldn't it mean when I'm using voice access with my headphones walk 10 meter from phone and say command while listen to music it would make my sound quality go down unless it uses phone mic, but I'm 10 meter from it so it shouldn't pick my voice, no? So what if quality of sound doesn't drop and my phone is picking up my command?

That is the thing. It can do bursts and the sound quality of the mic will be very low with voice commands but if the mic is consistently active it will go into call mode so it can provide adequate mic and audio for calling purposes.

 

There is a reason all those not bt 5.0 wireless headsets that really focus on wireless latency free gaming or high quality wireless audio have a base station with 2.4ghz audio connection because bt wasn't really an option.

[Maayu]

I see... The way they are naming bluetooth low energy generations is misleading.. you would think if it's 4 then it should be at least not worse then 3.. but if I'm reading into this correctly then 4.X is basically 1.X but with lower power consumption and 5.X is 2.X with lower power consumption.. Do I understand this correctly? 

Which means it's not a phone that is messing everything up, but headphones which use 4.2 Bluetooth... Thanks for explaining

[Wesker993]

Hello!

 

Having the very same issue. But there MUST be something to make it work still. Something weird happened to me yesterday:

 

I am using the FreeBuds Pro and a Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro (both Bluetooth 5.0) and had a very nice conversation via Discord which I often have. I decided to have a bath when I suddenly had the feeling that there is a difference in quality. I opened youtube and it was perfectly fine WHILE being in the conversation. Also the volume bar was split into the video audio and the discord audio bar. I thought it was part of an update which happened just the day before for the buds but when I reconnected for testing purposes the quality dropped back to 1945. 

There must be something to trigger or exploit it. Just how?!