Bluetooth headset with poor sound quality on Ubuntu

Question

I've bought a Philips SHB4000 headset (phone+mic) wireless (bluetooth) and It has a good quality when I pair it with my phone or PC Windows but when I pair it with the same PC on Ubuntu (14.10 64 bits) the sound quality goes down.

I've been googling about but I haven't found any convincing answer.

Tks in advance! ....

Solution 1

Go into sound settings, then see what the SHB4000 is using. If it uses HSP/HFP change to A2DP.

Solution 2

Here is the solution that worked for me on Debian 9 (menu impossible to apply)

Important: you will have to restart bluetooth before each reconnection !

Source: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/415928/325467

---

I am using a SoundBuds Curve headset in Debian 9, and have had the same problem, I was unable to switch from the HSP/HFP profile to the A2DP profile.

What fixed the issue for me, was editing /etc/bluetooth/main.conf

sudo nano /etc/bluetooth/main.conf

First add the following lines under the [General] tag (copied from audio.conf, I found searching for a solution):

# Automatically connect both A2DP and HFP/HSP profiles for incoming
# connections. Some headsets that support both profiles will only connect the
# other one automatically so the default setting of true is usually a good
# idea.
AutoConnect=true

Next you must enable support for multiple profiles (a few lines below) just uncomment and set value to multiple

MultiProfile = multiple

Then restart bluetooth service

sudo systemctl restart bluetooth 

Important: you will have to restart bluetooth before each reconnection !

Solution 3

For those experiencing this with Ubuntu 16.04, and switching to A2DP only worked once, I had to disconnect, forget the device, reconnect, switch to A2DP, for it to start working again.

(Wanted to post this as a comment, but n00b-ness prevents this)

Solution 4

For Ubuntu 20.04 only (seems to be fixed in 21.04)

For anyone, that uses the Microphone of their Headset with Ubuntu and complain about bad sound and speech quality:

There is a new update in Mai 2021:

With this commit, HFP can be enabled which supports wideband audio-speech via bluetooth. I was able to improve my microphone quality alot and my colleagues actually can understand me now and I dont sound like talking with an old phone.

Tested on Ubuntu 20.04 with Sony 1000-mx3

For this to work you need to clone the latest pulseaudio master from their git repository by:

git clone https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pulseaudio/pulseaudio.git

Compile and install via

meson build
sudo ninja -C build install
sudo ldconfig

Taken from the docs of pulseaudio

You might have to install source-dependencies for the compilation to work. For this goto open Software-Settings with software-properties-gtk and enable source. Then install the build-dependencies with sudo apt-get build-dep pulseaudio

Restart. Then, when you open your Sound-Settings you are able to choose the HFP-Profile, which enables much better sound-quality for VOIP. For best music-quality, still better switch to A2DP again, however, this one does not support microphone usage.

Solution 5

The solution which worked for me is here

basically it says to do:

$sudo apt install pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils pavucontrol pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

then add:

[General]
Enable=Source,Sink,Media,Socket

to /etc/bluetooth/audio.conf and run:

sudo service bluetooth restart

Then reconnect your headphones and it should work. It did for me!

View more solutions

Comments

[Jeremy31]

Sounds like you are using the HSP/HFP instead of A2DP, go into sound settings, then see what the SHB4000 is using

[Cleber Marques]

I had loud sound while I was changing to A2DP... I got a fright! :P Tks! Now it works with good quality!

[Laurent06000]

Same problem with a Philips SHB7150 [ Philips SHB7150 ][1] [1]: p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/dcbint/…

[Peeperkorn]

For those who had the same problem that I had (that the high fidelity playback does not work and cuts out all audio and applications that use this audio): this script solved the issue: askubuntu.com/a/864841/119445

[TamaMcGlinn]

See this thread regarding A2DP not working with the mic. Not currently solved, unfortunately.

[Fran Marzoa]

It worked for my MPow too!

[Nicholas]

Thanks. Just noting this worked for my Sony MDR-ZX770BN as well.

[Peeperkorn]

Seems I spoke too soon. When I change the settings from HSP/HFP to A2DP Sink, the sound cuts out and any applications which use sound stop working

[Craig Otis]

This worked for me on Fedora 25. It temporarily re-routed things back through my desktop speakers, but I just swapped the Output Device back and forth a couple times and it started working perfectly.

[demon101]

But for my Sony MDR-ZX770BN I can't change to A2DP: configuration not saved. Gubuntu 17.04

[ChameleonScales]

When I enable A2DP in the audio settings and click Apply, then close and reopen the settings, it's back to HSP/HFP, and the sound quality didn't change at any moment.

[ExplodingKittens]

This worked perfectly for my JBL Charge device on Xubuntu 17.04. Just make sure you turn your volume down before doing this, because it might cause your speaker to start playing on full blast.

[Hubro]

This caused all audio to cut out and my bluetooth headset to disappear from the audio devices list. After a quick pulseaudio restart (pulseaudio -k) it was back and sounding glorious!

[Radek Skokan]

Solved the poor quality with Audio-Technica ATH-SR5BT too. Saved my life (and Ubuntu on my PC).

[gayavat]

thanks a lot! Quickest solution to make me happy with my headphones!)

[Nicky De Maeyer]

does not work for ubuntu 17.10 with sony WH1000MX2

[Vindicated Halcyon]

i added the below bluetooth config as per 56ka. didn't work this also nearly didn't work until I went back into audio and chose main speaker to be default then my current device boombar to be default again - it is a little flaky - and requires running through the sequences-

[רועי ולנר]

Sony MDR user here, if i enable sound input trough the device it will force using HSP mode (which is crap sound quality) is this a device limitation? i do not remember having this on macbook pro though

[MonkeyMonkey]

The quality is now much better, but the microphone's gone :D

[Vegard]

Sony user here. To fix the problem of not being able to change the profile, do the config change first as noted in on of the other answers, remove and re-add the device, then try changing again.

[Suvarna Pattayil]

Just a note: This solution worked awesomely for Ubuntu 18.10 and Boat Rockerz 255 Bluetooth earphone. With HSP/HFP it sounded horrible, with A2DP it is like HD :D Thanks!

[mneumann]

@Peeperkorn Sound cut out for me as well. I set the other two options (on Kubuntu 18.04) that say "Add virtual output device for simulataneous output on all local sound cars" and "Automatically switch all running streams when a new output becomes available". I had a video running on a streaming website, skipped forward a bit and the sound came back.

[Jaec]

I don't know why, but something (maybe an update) changed my settings to "HSP/HFP", reverting it to "A2DP" solved the issue.

[Player1]

@MonkeyMonkey You have to switch back to HSP/HFP profile.

[Giszmo]

This answer helped in no way. The headset works worse now. :( Before: only low quality available. After: only low quality, with disconnections and although headset "connects", the sound settings miss the bluetooth device.

[CTodea]

Worked on Sennheiser PXC-550.

[John Hunt]

This also worked on Ubuntu 20.20 or whatever the latest 2020 one is lol. A bit confusing as to why but whatever, thanks music no longer sounds like windows 3.11 uLaw (I'm getting old..) :)

[george_h]

> Important: you will have to restart bluetooth before each reconnection ! This is true when using my Sennheiser headphones. Sound quality is bad (as if listening from inside a cave or something). Then I restart the service and the quality much better.

[dargmuesli]

Amazing, I cannot believe that's finally possible -

[cheffo]

Thanks, this seems to be part of the distribution starting with ubuntu Impish release packages.ubuntu.com/impish/pulseaudio

[DimiDak]

How difficult is for Canonical to fix a problem which is there for decades? Something that is given and guaranteed to work on every other Operating System?...

[DimiDak]

How difficult is for Canonical to fix a problem which is there for decades? Something that is given and guaranteed to work on every other Operating System?...

[jhnwsk]

Thanks for this. It literally changes my life. I was getting ready to try replacing pulseaudio with pipewire on focal but this works wonders.

[Ville Laitila]

Worked on Sony WH-H910N too.

[Alon Samuel]

Also to Monster Icon BT one, worked!! thanks!

[TamaMcGlinn]

to fix the errors during the meson build, of the form ERROR: Dependency "X" you need to do sudo apt install libX-dev. In my case, libtdb-dev and libsndfile-dev were the missing dependencies. For libcheck, the package doesn't exist, so needed to build from source.

[TamaMcGlinn]

after trying this and finding it did not work, I realised @cheffo's comment means that Ubuntu 21 already has this fix in it; only try this answer if you are still on Ubuntu 20 or lower!

[MichaelJanz]

Thanks for the hint, I will update the answer accordingly

[Admin]

Nowadays this still working, but when I switch to mic of headphones starts again the bad quality.