Bose QuietComfort 35 Bluetooth Headphones crackling/choppy when connected to Mac?

QC35's are linked to both my iPhone and my Mac but when I connect the headphones to my Mac (without pairing to my iPhone) the sound is choppy (brief & frequent loss in audio).

Sometimes pairing my iPhone fixes the problem but not always. What can I do?

Solution 1:

UPDATE: I no longer experience these issues so it was likely fixed by a previous update. Open the "Bose Connect" app on your phone and make sure your firmware is up to date.

When experiencing issues on Mac, open the "Bose Connect" app on your iPhone and connect to your headphones from there (if not already connected).

The app correctly configures the headphones and eliminates all sound issues.

Solution 2:

The sound quality of the Bose QC35 when connected to mac depends on the used audio codec. Sadly, mac computers tend to switch to the low-quality SCO codec when a Bluetooth headset is also used as "input device" (microphone).

Active codec can be shown by by ⌥-clicking the Bluetooth icon in the macOS Menu Bar.

Current best practice is to set the Internal Microphone of your mac as Input Device, and keep the Bose QC35 only selected as Output Device. Input and Output devices can be selected in System Settings > Sound or by ⌥-clicking the Volume icon in the macOS Menu Bar, and selecting devices there.

When the Bose QC35 is not used as an Input Device, mac audio playback can leverage the higher quality AAC codec: