Distorted or Low-Quality Sound in Speakers or Headphones When Connected to the Plugable Bluetooth Adapter

Last Update: October 12th, 2020
Article ID: 387072

If you are encountering issues with sound quality when connected through the Plugable Bluetooth adapter, it is usually caused by the audio device being connected in headset mode.

Bluetooth has two primary profiles for handling audio. One of these profiles is referred to as the Headset Profile (HSP   ) and the other is the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP   ).

A2DP is the profile that is most often used for listening to music in stereo at high quality.

HSP allows for microphone input from a Bluetooth device at the expense of reducing audio quality, and limiting sound output from the PC to monaural audio rather than stereo.

In Windows, the headset profile is automatically triggered any time that the microphone is requested by an application. This can include being in the Windows sound properties and viewing recording devices, or if a communication application like Skype or Discord is set to use the microphone on a Bluetooth audio device.

You will want to make sure that:

  • Your Bluetooth audio device is not set as the default recording device the audio configuration panel of Windows
  • The audio configuration panel is closed when testing the audio quality
  • Your applications are not set to use the Bluetooth audio device for recording

If the headset profile is active the audio will usually sound compressed and lack punchiness.

If you continue to experience issues with your Plugable Bluetooth adapter or Plugable Bluetooth audio device, please reach out to us at support@plugable.com so that we can help.