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SelfVoice is the problem. > In several conversations with customers, there was some confusion about noise cancellation function during a phone call or other Bl
by jjoonathan 7y ago
SelfVoice is the problem.
> In several conversations with customers, there was some confusion about noise cancellation function during a phone call or other Bluetooth HFP connection.
Yeah, because having multiple bluetooth profiles, one of which has good cancellation and one of which doesn't due to SelfVoice is disastrous UX.
Anything that perturbs the bluetooth settings on sound-producing devices and switches the default connected endpoint is going to trigger a severe degradation of the headphones' noise cancellation and noise floor. There is no light, or button, or obvious cue to indicate that the device is in a special state. Fixing the problem requires understanding this weird, hidden behavior (strike one) and dealing with bluetooth settings (strike two) on a device that isn't the headphone (strike three).
I am very happy to hear that they are doing something about it, because Windows has recently started clearing my repeated efforts to disable the SelfVoice endpoint. Even though I understand the problem completely (which is always the biggest hurdle) dealing with it has recently become a severe enough hassle that I've been considering ditching the Bose on account of it.
- IceDane 7y agoI bought the QC35-IIs through my works tech budget and was very disappointed to find out how they worked wrt. there being two different voice profiles, where one profile uses this selfvoice thing and has no ANC. This is particularly shite when trying to use it to play games while talking to friends on discord. Am I understanding you correctly that it's possible to somehow disable this feature or something? If so, can you share?
- jjoonathan 7y agoYeah. Navigate to: Windows Key search > "Sound Settings" > Output > Manage Sound Devices The "Manage sound devices" panel should show a list of "Output devices" and a list of "Input devices." Click on one to disclose a Test button and a Disable button. You should see your headphones show up twice in the "Output devices" menu. Testing one of them will result in a clean sound, the other will result in shit sound (due to SelfVoice). Press "Disable" on the one with shit sound. Then do it again next time Windows Update runs and clears your user settings, and again, and again, because apparently clearing settings to default is something that Windows Update does now (I've seen it in other places too).
- Dylan16807 7y agoSpecifically, the big named releases every six* months, the ones that make a new windows folder, wipe and reinstall all audio devices. * They're possibly moving to having only the Spring updates do this.
- zneveu 7y agoNote: this isn't just a Bose thing. Bluetooth has separate profiles built in for phone calls/two way audio and one way audio. Because of bandwidth limitations, quality is essentially cut in half while using two way audio. While self-voice can add back some external noise, the bulk of the audio quality loss is built into the Bluetooth spec.