SOLUTION EDIT:

So my solution has been to order a refurbished Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen2 with the dongle. It was $100 cheaper than the gen3 and I’m not that flush with cash that $100AUD doesn’t make a difference to me.

I can use the LDAC codec with the XM4s but it switches the mic off. I can’t get stereo and mic working at the same time likely due to the limitations of the bluetooth protocol.

I was also considering a blue yeti mic on a boom but it was looking to be the same price as the Turtle Beach refurbs.

Thanks everyone for all your input. Much appreciated.

ORIGINAL POST:

Hi everyone.

So I’m trying to use my Sony wireless cans over bluetooth for Arc Raiders and the mic isn’t very good at all. It’s better in discord but my friends tell me it’s still not great.

I’m aware of bluetooth duplex quality issues. It used to work fine on Windows 10 but is struggling on Bazzite. I’d love to just tinker with some settings or drivers and have it work so I don’t have to buy anything else.

I’m prepared to buy a wireless headset with 2.4ghz dongle but don’t know what’s good.

I’m also prepared to buy a microphone and just use the headset as headphones only.

I’ve done about five years help desk support so would strongly prefer not to be physically tethered to my computer.

Thanks for any advice.

  • iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    9 days ago

    Check on the audio settings what codec is actually in use? I have the XM5. I haven’t used bazzite specifically, but on the steam deck they work well (for playback only, I don’t play online). On KDE they work well for zoom calls. On some occasion they might connect… Wrong, using the most basic Bluetooth profile. And then they do sound like ass. Restarting Bluetooth usually fixes it, if reconnecting is not enough.

    • SaneMartigan@aussie.zoneOPEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      What was happening was the codec was dropping back to mono in order for enough bluetooth bandwidth to also transmit the mic. I don’t think there was a way around it, it’s a pure hardware limitation at this point. I could manually change the codec to a high quality option but it’d kill of the mic. I’ve ordered a new headset with dedicated 2.4ghz dongle. Thanks for your help.

      • iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        5 days ago

        That sounds like…a hardware issue. Maybe the antenna is broken? Any normal codec would work up to a certain distance of several meters. Unless the antenna is being blocked.

        • SaneMartigan@aussie.zoneOPEnglish
          1·
          4 days ago

          Nah, it’s bluetooth only has so much bandwidth. It can send stereo sound but not mic or mono sound with mic.

    • SaneMartigan@aussie.zoneOPEnglish
      2·
      9 days ago

      There’s five codec options. I’ll have a tinker and see if I can get a better one going. Thanks for the input.

      SBC / SBC-XQ / AAC / CVSD / mSBC

      The first three are listed as High Fidelity Playback A2DP link. The last two are Headset head unit HSP/HFP.

      • burrito@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        9 days ago

        LDAC is the highest quality codec you can use on those. I’m not sure if you can do a microphone profile with it. Search your distro’s package manager for ldac and it should give you a package to add it.

          • burrito@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            2·
            8 days ago

            And you have to disable the two device connection setting on the headphones to use the LDAC codec on them. That threw me for a loop on mine for a bit when I was trying to get it enabled.

          • entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
            2·
            8 days ago

            FYI, SBC-XQ should be functionally just as good as LDAC and doesn’t require nearly as much fiddling because it’s an open standard.

            • SaneMartigan@aussie.zoneOPEnglish
              2·
              8 days ago

              Thanks. That’s what I’ve been using. I played with the codecs with friends on discord giving feedback.