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#1 2020-05-17 03:13:21

bin
Member
Registered: 2020-05-17
Posts: 2

Bluetooth 5.0 aptX input not working

Hi,

I've got an intel 9260 wireless card with bluetooth 5.1 and a pair of wireless headphones with bluetooth 5.0.  They both support the aptX codec, and I've got output working fine.  I'm running latest bluez and pulseaudio with pulseaudio-modules-bt-git for aptX support.  My understanding is that the increased bandwidth of the newer standard should prevent the need to use the old hsp/hfp profiles that give such cruddy audio.  Here are the profiles I see available:

Card #5
	Name: bluez_card.REDACTED_MACADDR
	Driver: module-bluez5-device.c
	Owner Module: 29
	Properties:
		device.description = "Back Bay D50 R"
		device.string = "REDACTED_MACADDR
		device.api = "bluez"
		device.class = "sound"
		device.bus = "bluetooth"
		device.form_factor = "headset"
		bluez.path = "/org/bluez/hci0/dev_REDACTED_MACADDR"
		bluez.class = "0x240404"
		bluez.alias = "Back Bay D50 R"
		device.icon_name = "audio-headset-bluetooth"
		device.intended_roles = "phone"
	Profiles:
		headset_head_unit: Headset Head Unit (HSP/HFP) (sinks: 1, sources: 1, priority: 30, available: no)
		a2dp_sink_sbc: High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink: SBC) (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 40, available: yes)
		a2dp_sink_aac: High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink: AAC) (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 40, available: yes)
		a2dp_sink_aptx: High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink: aptX) (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 40, available: yes)
		a2dp_sink_aptx_hd: High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink: aptX HD) (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 40, available: no)
		a2dp_sink_ldac: High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink: LDAC) (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 40, available: no)
		a2dp_source_sbc: High Fidelity Capture (A2DP Source: SBC) (sinks: 0, sources: 1, priority: 20, available: yes)
		a2dp_source_aac: High Fidelity Capture (A2DP Source: AAC) (sinks: 0, sources: 1, priority: 20, available: no)
		a2dp_source_aptx: High Fidelity Capture (A2DP Source: APTX) (sinks: 0, sources: 1, priority: 20, available: no)
		a2dp_source_aptx_hd: High Fidelity Capture (A2DP Source: aptX HD) (sinks: 0, sources: 1, priority: 20, available: no)
		off: Off (sinks: 0, sources: 0, priority: 0, available: yes)
	Active Profile: a2dp_sink_aptx
	Ports:
		headset-output: Headset (priority: 0, latency offset: 0 usec, available)
			Part of profile(s): headset_head_unit, a2dp_sink_sbc, a2dp_sink_aac, a2dp_sink_aptx, a2dp_sink_aptx_hd, a2dp_sink_ldac
		headset-input: Headset (priority: 0, latency offset: 0 usec, not available)
			Part of profile(s): headset_head_unit, a2dp_source_sbc, a2dp_source_aac, a2dp_source_aptx, a2dp_source_aptx_hd

But, I'm not able to use the microphone.  I'm unable to manually set other profiles, either in pavucontrol or with 'pacmd set-card-profile 5 headset_head_unit`, `pacmd set-card-profile 5 a2xp_source_aptx`, etc.  The only mic device I see for it is a monitor in pulseaudio.  Does anyone have ideas on how to resolve this?  I'd be happy to provide any additional information that might assist.

bin

Edit: Note that I'm on pulseaudio 13.0, not the 10.0 mentioned with the link to a similar bug on the wiki page.

Edit 2: I tried the `register-service 0000110b-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb` trick from the wiki; no luck.  The source profiles all remain unavailable and I receive a failure to set card profile from pacmd.

Edit 3: I see a possible solution here on the wiki with some bizarre ofono solution: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Bl … PulseAudio
However, I thought bluetooth 5 had enough bandwidth that audio quality wouldn't become garbage when a microphone was running.  Any ideas here, as that seems like a really bad solution?

Edit 4: Everything I read is telling me a2dp profiles are all unidirectional, but what's the point of bluetooth 5 if we're still stuck with the same brain-damaged-bad audio and hsp/hfp profiles?

Edit 5: This thread discusses some people playing with getting something like this working: https://pulseaudio-discuss.freedesktop. … tooth-a2dp
I wonder if there's been any progress since its posting?  Would I need a codec like FastStream or aptX LL to do this?

Last edited by bin (2020-05-17 04:31:12)

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#2 2020-05-17 10:00:13

V1del
Forum Moderator
Registered: 2012-10-16
Posts: 21,425

Re: Bluetooth 5.0 aptX input not working

See https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=255178 and the links therein, work seems to be done on expanding the HSB code to a wider band mSBC implementation, but that needs kernel level support that hopefully lands in 5.8 and at least that patch mentioned there for pulse.

Also I'm fairly certain that relevant bluetooth 5 enhancements that would actively help with this aren't yet implemented in bluez/kernel space yet

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#3 2020-05-17 16:19:16

bin
Member
Registered: 2020-05-17
Posts: 2

Re: Bluetooth 5.0 aptX input not working

Thanks for that link; I appreciate the information.  I'm glad to know that this should at least be improved in the future with the 5.8 kernel.  Would such an mSBC codec require explicit support from the earbuds, or could kernel, pulse, and bluez manage to enable it based on existing SBC support?

Last edited by bin (2020-05-17 16:20:16)

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