[Fixed] 10.12.5 ANY Bluetooth Headset Mic Heavy Static

[pingram]

Pulling my hair out here. My bluetooth headset mic only captures my mic input with very heavy static, as if my voice is way over-amplified. It is unrecognizable what I am saying.

- Reboot doesn't fix the problem.
- Deleting and re-pairing the BT headphones also didn't fix anything.
- Trying different headphones has same experience
- I can hear stereo audio just fine. (output - good, input - bad)

The Mic in the system sound input tab shows the input bars reaching the length of the mic volume, i.e. half way. Adjusting volume also works but no change in static, spoken words are still unrecognizable, just higher or lower static volume.

I've tested with different programs such as skype, teamviewer, gotomeeting, and simple recorder all the same. I've tested with headset paired to another device and mic works exceptionally so it is not my BT hardware.

OS X's bluetooth options provide very little settings compared to Linux, meaning I have no choices on advanced bluetooth settings such as audio profiles (A2DP, etc), stereo or mono modes, frequencies such as 8k vs 44k, etc.

A few weeks ago I had fixed low/bad/scratchy audio quality based on changing the com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent defaults:

From:

{
    "Apple Bitpool Max (editable)" = 80;
    "Apple Bitpool Min (editable)" = 48;
    "Apple Initial Bitpool (editable)" = 40;
    "Negotiated Bitpool" = 48;
    "Negotiated Bitpool Max" = 53;
    "Negotiated Bitpool Min" = 48;
    "Stream - Flush Ring on Packet Drop (editable)" = 30;
    "Stream - Max Outstanding Packets (editable)" = 15;
    "Stream Resume Delay" = "0.75";
}

To:

{
    "Apple Bitpool Max (editable)" = 80;
    "Apple Bitpool Min (editable)" = 80;
    "Apple Initial Bitpool (editable)" = 80;
    "Apple Initial Bitpool Min (editable)" = 80;
    "Negotiated Bitpool" = 80;
    "Negotiated Bitpool Max" = 80;
    "Negotiated Bitpool Min" = 80;
    "Stream - Flush Ring on Packet Drop (editable)" = 30;
    "Stream - Max Outstanding Packets (editable)" = 15;
    "Stream Resume Delay" = "0.75";
}

Upon reboot this fixed my crappy stereo output but I fear this has screwed up the mic input. Any help greatly appreciated.

 

[pingram]

Update: Not sure how this fixed itself but all I did was hunt down instructions for installing Bluetooth Explorer in Xcode and then poke around a bit. I didn't change a single setting but upon next boot both my Mic and Stereo headset are working again.