PC Gamers Rejoice, Windows 11 Gets Super Wideband Stereo For High-Quality Bluetooth Audio
PC gamers who have opted for a wireless setup have always had to deal with the limitations of Bluetooth Classic Audio. Most notably, when jumping from a single player experience to a multiplayer game mode, there would usually be a noticeable drop-off in audio quality. That's because the operating system would switch to the "Headset" profile instead of the "Headphone" profile, which uses low-bitrate mono audio tuned for speech instead of high-quality stereo audio. In turn, this leads to muffled-sounding audio that’s was fine for a Skype call, but not ideal for an immersive gaming experience.
The move to the newer Bluetooth LE audio profiles will solve this issue entirly, with better audio compression, super wideband audio fidelity, and a higher sample rate that won't drop off treble like the current Hands-Free Profile does. Gamers won’t be the only one to benefit from these upgrades, though. Video and voice calls will also get a bump in clarity, which will be welcomed by users who spend a lot of time using apps such as Microsoft Teams or Zoom.
Additionally, Microsoft says spatial audio will also become available within videoconferencing apps, which will apparently add “spatial cues so the voice of each person comes from where their video is located on your screen.” Sounds like a gimmick, but it could be legitimately useful for intuitively identifying speakers in video calls; we'll have to try it and see.
This upgraded audio experience should be available now to users running the latest version of Windows 11 24H2, but both the PC and Bluetooth headset will also have to support LE Audio to unlock these upgrades. You can check Microsoft's Bluetooth LE Audio site to see if your device supporst the new technology.
