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On two separate MacBook Pros (one brand new, one several years old) running OSX Yosemite, all bluetooth audio devices are choppy (audio clicks in and out, skips like a scratched CD).

I have tried playing audio through Spotify, iTunes, YouTube with Beats Studio wireless headphones and a Big Jambox on both, in separate environments. Sometimes the sound is perfect and clear. Then it suddenly becomes choppy.

I've looked at Activity Monitor during choppy times, and nothing seems different from normal.

For the record, using the same Wifi and devices, iOS8 iPhone 6 and 5S both do not have this issue.

I'm curious how to even begin to troubleshoot the issue - It's hard to troubleshoot as there's no way of knowing if it's interference, app performance, etc.

venables
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    My experience with Yosemite from day one has indicated serious wifi/bluetooth issues. This is backed up by thousands of other mac users experiencing a wide variety of issues most likely related to bluetooth/wifi. I'm hoping it will be resolved in 10.10.2 but unfortunately I reckon you might be out of luck until then...! Out of curiosity are you using 2.4GHz wifi at the same time? If so, try with ethernet or 5Ghz and see if you get better results – doovers Jan 14 '15 at 01:19
  • @doovers Thank you - That's a great suggestion. I've turned off WiFi on this machine, but with no luck. Though, it sounds like it may be less choppy as things were previously - hard to tell since the choppiness happens so intermittently – venables Jan 14 '15 at 15:42
  • I am experiencing similar problems. Crackling sound and sometimes audio stops suddenly and just high volume noise remains. I need to reconnect device. I tried with Bose SoundLink Mini and JBL with same results. Problem is somehow connected with switching graphics desktops on my LG monitor if I don't do any switching and put all apps on one desktop it never happens. Maybe some bug with Thunderbolt connection of LG monitor. Monitor suffer some issues from time to time as well. –  Feb 03 '15 at 10:00
  • Try disconnecting your bluetooth keyboard. – Arne Sep 04 '17 at 19:00

3 Answers3

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It's an issue with the amount of power/bandwidth supplied to the BluetoothAudioAgent, the daemon in charge of streaming. Apparently most people have had success by entering the following command in terminal.app:

defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Bitpool Min (editable)" -int 40

Source: http://lifehacker.com/fix-your-bluetooth-audio-in-yosemite-with-this-terminal-1670380974

The source article lists Yosemite as the specific OS this applies to, but I know that this fix also works back to Mavericks and (possibly) Snow Leopard (untested).

I am having this exact issue at the moment and entered that command with non-noticeable results. I'm going to reboot the machine and see if that takes the new settings into account. But it seems like this command is the way that the wide majority of people have resolved this issue.

EDIT: Just rebooted, the audio quality is significantly better. No noticeable choppiness whatsoever (knock on wood). It appears that the command I posted above does seem to resolve the issue.

EDIT 2 (2015-8-24): The above command does help in many cases and produces noticeable quality improvements. Unfortunately, however, Yosemite is very moody with regard to bluetooth audio. The problem compounds itself when in proximity of other bluetooth devices. To expand on my previous answer above, I highly recommend entering the following additional commands to increase other bluetooth audio parameters:

defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Bitpool Max (editable)" 80 
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Bitpool Min (editable)" 48 
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Initial Bitpool (editable)" 40 
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Initial Bitpool Min (editable)" 40 
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Negotiated Bitpool" 58 
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Negotiated Bitpool Max" 58 
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Negotiated Bitpool Min" 48

EDIT 3 (2015-9-08): Alright. I'm sorry I keep updating this answer, but I keep finding more information about this issue (since improving bluetooth audio on Yosemite is a long-term effort, apparently). I've found several sources that cut straight to the mustard and set everything to 80 which appears to be the maximum allowable value for Bitpool settings. If the above settings don't work well enough for you, try the "All In™" approach.

defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Bitpool Max (editable)" 80 
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Bitpool Min (editable)" 80 
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Initial Bitpool (editable)" 80 
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Initial Bitpool Min (editable)" 80 
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Negotiated Bitpool" 80 
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Negotiated Bitpool Max" 80 
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Negotiated Bitpool Min" 80

To see your current defaults:

defaults read com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent

Edit 4 (2016-07-14): One more (hopefully last) edit. Make sure that you restart the bluetoothaudiod (or coreaudiod) service after making changes to these settings. 

sudo killall bluetoothaudiod

Or, if you are on El Capitan:

sudo killall coreaudiod

Credit for this goes to the multiple wise nerds below who suggested it. (Thank you!)

Pierce
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  • Try to ensure there is clear line of sight between your Mac and the bluetooth receiver. For me, the fix people give defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Bitpool Min (editable)" -int 40 didn't help alone. – Vaclav Hudec Apr 21 '15 at 09:06
  • Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015, Prestigo headset, nothing helped, but it got better. – Sergei Beregov Sep 10 '15 at 12:39
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    These tips are great, unfortunately my Bluetooth audio is still choppy with WiFi enabled :( Cranked values up all the way to 80 and rebooted. (MBP early 2013, 15 inch) – Matt Oct 22 '15 at 19:40
  • Logout and login worked to apply the settings for me. This helped a ton! Cheap headset I guess, because I hear a constant fuzzy sound. – Michael Ozeryansky Dec 31 '15 at 01:53
  • @Pierce: I've the same exact issues of the opener post with the music receiver TP-Link HA100. But I have El Capitan, so what commands I have to use? – Fred K Jan 01 '16 at 11:21
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    Tried on El capitan, the commands don't work... – Fred K Jan 01 '16 at 13:28
  • Tried on El Capitan. The commands entered seem to be saved after calling defaults read com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent. Haven't rebooted yet though, but the commands do get stored as expected. – James Jan 07 '16 at 11:05
  • I also ran the above commands again and they were both stored correctly and persisted after a reboot. I'm on the latest El Capitan (10.11.2 at the time of this comment). What error are you seeing @FredK? – Pierce Jan 07 '16 at 19:19
  • Sorry but I was getting mad and ask for a refund for the device, so I buy the Airport Express (WiFi) that works like a charm... but all of this is really sad. – Fred K Jan 09 '16 at 13:49
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    After running the commands I saw no change, so I restarted bluetoothaudiod: sudo killall bluetoothaudiod. Reconnect your audio device after that. Amazing difference in sound quality. I always thought my speaker sucked. (El Capitan) – h4xnoodle Feb 16 '16 at 03:46
  • This helped a lot thanks :D

    However, could someone tell me the default values for a 15in rMBP?

     – Rio Mar 29 '16 at 02:20
  • still getting skips after this. Any ideas if you can upgrade the bluetooth device in a macbook pro 2012 unibody? – TWilly May 16 '16 at 17:13
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    Nothing works for me with El Capitan. The only option for me is to reboot and then it works fine (not even the sudo killall bluetoothaudiod). Then it works perfectly for a couple days-weeks (so, no problems with positioning or other devices interfering). – Josep Valls May 21 '16 at 13:28
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    Tried "All In" with Mid-2012 rMBP, then sudo killall bluetoothaudiod, and it seems to have worked. Had tried each individually and they did not work. – vaughan Jul 12 '16 at 09:47
  • @vaughan @h4xnoodle Thank you for those wise suggestions. I have updated my answer to suggest restarting bluetoothaudiod after making changes. Thank you for adding this! It's such a common sense thing, which is why I missed it. – Pierce Jul 14 '16 at 16:27
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    Maybe I've just got to much connected to Bluetooth (keyboard, trackpad, mouse, speakers). Changing these settings didn't seem to help. It appears that the saturation of WiFi in this apartment building may be the cause, as some times the audio is fine. I'm just thankful that my speakers also have an AUX in. – Mint Jul 14 '16 at 23:47
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    @Mint I have been having the same issues recently with choppy, poor bluetooth audio. Your "too many devices" statement gave me the idea to remove all paired devices from my mac with the exception of my headphones and magic mouse. This immediately fixed my problem, audio is back to normal. I previously had 10 paired devices. – Jacob Jul 18 '16 at 15:54
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    New apartment with new wifi modem - started dropping out again :( This is heartbreaking for me with my new QuietComfort 35. – vaughan Jul 23 '16 at 10:52
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    Thanks for this! I was getting huge delays when starting playback (i.e. spotify would hang for 30+ seconds before audio would start coming through my Bose QC35s) Small update to your instructions if you don't mind, in El Capitan you need to sudo killall coreaudiod rather than bluetoothaudiod – micmcg Sep 02 '16 at 01:22
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    @micmcg Thank you for that! I've updated the answer to reflect coreaudiod. – Pierce Sep 06 '16 at 11:57
  • Nope. Not working for me with a new Sony XB10 speaker :( great way to 'encourage' updating to crapOs. The speaker works fine with other sources (iphone, other mac running Seirra). Also my Sony XB40 speaker works without problem with my Yosemite system, while the XB10 cuts in/out. An these chuckleheads are removing headphone jacks from their stuff?!?!?! – Ray Oct 10 '17 at 21:50
  • It is better now, however its still there "High Sierra". – FelikZ Nov 12 '17 at 13:54
  • Many cuts in High Sierra, interestingly enough not in iOS. Your suggestions improved the situation, but it is still present. I suggest adding to the answer disconnecting other bluetooth devices - disconnecting my Apple bluetooth keyboard greatly improved the quality of the sound. – Rui F Ribeiro Nov 18 '17 at 12:08
  • THANK YOU! This fixed my problems with High Sierra 10.13.12 + B&O Beoplay E8. – kumikoda Jan 24 '18 at 22:53
  • These didn't help me at all. Instead I got constantly stuttering sound so I had to remove these settings entirely. They were not initially even set so I'm not sure how High Sierra reads the default values. – Timo Jun 07 '18 at 13:59
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    Thanks! Just the first command was enough on Catalina 10.15.5 + JBL Tune 500BT. Note that running defaults read com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent initially returns "Domain com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent does not exist", but setting Apple Bitpool Min (editable) to 40 sticks and apparently has effect. – jamix Jun 11 '20 at 18:37
  • Here's what bitpool actually means: Bitpool is a parameter that changes encoding bitrate: the higher it is, the higher the bitrate, and hence the quality. – ijoseph Jul 18 '20 at 22:20
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You can also tune the BlueToothAudioAgent by installing the bluetooth explorer that comes with XCode, and then within that, selecting tools..audio options. This gives a few more options, which are no doubt all also able to be set via the command line. There are also tools..audio graphs that you can look at to see what's going on. I found that tuning the number of buffered packets gave me good results (at least, until my bluetooth audio stopped working entirely).

PaulL
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    Could you explain the sequence of Steps to get from Xcode installed from the MAS to having Bluetooth Explorer able to run? I don't see it except as a private download for registered developers, but I could be looking in all the wrong places. – bmike May 30 '15 at 19:13
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    No, that's basically it. But registered developers actually appears to mean "anyone with an appleId" because I think I just logged in with my appleId and it was happy. – PaulL May 30 '15 at 19:36
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    Apple Dev accounts are free. It's publishing to the app store that costs 100 per year. – cde Oct 07 '15 at 17:01
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    I used the Audio MIDI Setup found in Utilities. – Michael Ozeryansky Dec 31 '15 at 02:02
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    @bmike You can get them by opening Xcode and selecting “Xcode -> Open Developer Tools -> More Tools” and then downloading the “Hardware IO” libraries after logging in with your developer credentials. – Anna Apr 26 '16 at 13:31
  • Well, Bluetooth Explorer is definitely interesting at least. Distracts me from my choppy audio with all the graphs and whatnot. – ijoseph Jul 18 '20 at 22:05
  • Ok, something in here worked actually. Maybe it was increasing buffer from 15 packets to 30 packets. – ijoseph Jul 18 '20 at 22:27
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For those, for whom dealing with com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent didn't had effect, for me reset of PRAM fixed the problem:

  • Turn off, then Turn on your Mac and hold down the Command+Option+P+R keys (hold all 4 keys at the same time)
  • Hold down all four keys until you hear the startup sound (Pauuuuum) twice. The startup sound for the second time means you’ve reset the PRAM.

Source: http://www.guidingtech.com/30498/what-is-pram-smc-mac-reset/

Daniel
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  • This did not for my case – Sgnl Sep 20 '17 at 20:47
  • I tried the "defaults write ..." options did not help. but along with this PRAM reboot, it definitely improved the situation (fingers crossed). – kctang Apr 05 '18 at 10:44
  • Tried default write ... does not work, try this works for me now. AirPods Pro's voice output on MacBookPro is more stable than before. – weaming Aug 25 '20 at 07:28