topic Re: Poor audio quality on MacBook Pro in Desktop (Mac)

Poor audio quality on MacBook Pro

Awara — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 15:13:00 GMT

Hello, I'm on a 2017 MacBook Pro listening on my spotify desktop app. Settings are set to very high quality sound, but the sound quality is awful compared to listening from my phone. It is noticeably worse -- whether I'm listening through AirPods or the computer speakers. The phone quality is lightyears ahead of the desktop app...

Something must be wrong?

Re: Poor audio quality on MacBook Pro

Awara — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 15:50:16 GMT

Quick update -- I tried regular 3.5mm apple headphones vs. my airpods, and the sound quality is great. So something is wrong with the AirPods/bluetooth connection but I'm not sure what. Have already tried re-pairing and that didn't help.

Re: Poor audio quality on MacBook Pro

DanifC — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 17:44:55 GMT

Hi @Awara,

Hope you are doing well. I just addressed this issue in another thread. Try that out and see if it works! If not, we'll go from there.

-Dani

Re: Poor audio quality on MacBook Pro

Awara — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 17:48:29 GMT

Tried that -- didn't work =(

Re: Poor audio quality on MacBook Pro

DanifC — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 17:55:00 GMT

Bummer. That's okay, though! We'll figure it out. Try going to the same sound menu > output, then select internal speakers, and then reselect your airpods. These are the steps outlined for troubleshooting this issue on the Apple website.

Edit: forgot to add that you should quit any apps that might use the Bluetooth mic, and close the sound panel before trying the above steps.

Re: Poor audio quality on MacBook Pro

pablodru — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 14:24:34 GMT

I had the same issue, I had to make sure in the Sound Preferences I'm listening from Sound Effects mode, not Input - that fixed it, very weird.

Re: Poor audio quality on MacBook Pro

heda — Wed, 22 Jul 2020 11:20:07 GMT

thank you so much, this worked perfectly fine!

Re: Poor audio quality on MacBook Pro

Ayush_71 — Sun, 08 Jan 2023 10:27:13 GMT

For anyone still facing this problem try switching the sound > input to your macbook's microphone, this seems to solve the audio quality for me.

Re: Poor audio quality on MacBook Pro

_2-iv6szhcmcr — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 11:23:15 GMT

That helped (to select another input device just double click on it)

Re: Poor audio quality on MacBook Pro

filipe_figueiredo — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 08:26:07 GMT

I noticed that my Sony XM3's were activating the microphone when listening to Spotify on my Macbook Pro, and that degraded sound quality. I changed the "Input" to the Macbook's microphone, and that seemed to fix the issue.

Now, this didn't use to be a problem, it only now started, so I hope it is just a glitch/bug of sorts that gets fixed soon, because I rely on my headphone's microphone for meetings and such.

Re: Muffled/bad quality when listening on my MacBook and iPad, great on iPhone

piranhaparty000 — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 21:47:56 GMT

I'm experiencing the same issue with my Macbook. I did the full re-install of the Spotify app to no avail. Having the same issue on web player as well.

Re: Muffled/bad quality when listening on my MacBook and iPad, great on iPhone

alan-parsons — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 21:48:26 GMT

I'll just add I'm having the same problem, with wired headphones. At first I thought it was some magic in the apple usb-c to 3.5" adapter, but I tried the adapter on the MacBook and it's the same quality as the built in headphone port, both inferior to iPhone. Sound is significantly better on iPhone, deeper bass, crisper details, better overall dynamic range. Using wired headphones. I have steam quality to lossless, normalization off. I just now installed the app on the Mac.

Re: Muffled/bad quality when listening on my MacBook and iPad, great on iPhone

nethead25 — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 21:46:50 GMT

Also experiencing this. Spotify streaming and download playback set to lossless on a MacBook Pro. Spotify cache cleared. Wired sounds worse than Bluetooth, which is a new one. Using Bose QC Headphones in all cases.

Spotify Desktop to Wired Bose: Awful, narrow sound stage and low bass
Apple Music to Wired Bose: Same song sounds much better, full bass and soundstage

Spotify Desktop to Bluetooth Bose: Slightly better, still noticeably poor quality

Spotify iPhone to Bluetooth Bose: Sounds spectacular

Re: Poor audio quality on MacBook Pro

bveagle — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 04:03:37 GMT

Sorry for being 6.5 years late. I fixed this problem after turning off my equalizer. Turns out it was set TERRIBLY for some reason.