Apple - AirPods: Extremely Poor Mic Quality On Mac
Answer : OP here – I'd just like to add to the answer below, that I've been in contact with Apple Support. Explanation Apple claims that the poor Mono 8kHz quality which affects recording and indeed simultaneously playback on Mac when the AirPod microphones are activated, is because the SCO codec then gets employed over the entire Mac audio system. This is supposedly "expected behaviour" when trying to use the AirPods and other Bluetooth headsets together with a computer, according to Apple. The AAC codec is normally used when just listening to playback on the AirPods. It's just very unfortunate that SCO – low-quality as it may be – upon AirPod microphone activation is not only limited to doing recording, but also displaces AAC and audio playback. Apple Support claims that Apple is looking at this issue, and that improvements might be coming in future firmware updates, but I did not interpret that as a promise to be honest. But for the time being, I'd ...