Windows Bluetooth Audio Sucks ?

cloneman · December 1, 2015

I have some Jaybird bluebuds X. They sound wonderful when paired with a Mac, but they sound just "ok" when paired with Windows 7 or Android (Nexus 4).

I ran an interesting comparison - I moved my USB adapter (ASUS USB BT 2.1) from Windows to Mac, and found that the quality was the same as with the Mac's Internal Bluetooth hardware. Which means that, the OSX bluetooth stack is just superior, it'a not a hardware problem.

I've tried playing with different windows BT stacks, but I'm just taking shots in the dark basically. Is there any way to make the Windows BT audio quality better? (Jaybirds uses SBC, so APT-X is not an option here)

ZetZet · December 1, 2015

Depends on the adapter, drivers. Drivers in this case.

cloneman · December 26, 2015

I fixed this finally by installing the Toshiba bluetooth stack

http://superuser.com/questions/972171/how-to-change-bluetooth-sbc-bitrate-bitpool-in-windows-7

Nexus 5X is also better than Nexus 4 for me in BT audio, could be because the android version is newer though.

Donk Quixote · December 26, 2015

I think "Windows 7" might be the key. With WIndows 8 and 10 I have to listen really hard to notice much of a difference between bluetooth and wired. I think there's been a huge jump in BT quality in general since the Nexus 4 was released.

It might be worth spending a few dollars on a BT 4.0 dongle to see if you can get another quality bump. I got this one specifically for using my DualShock 3 controllers on Windows, and it was excellent for BT headphones too.