Bluetooth Headphones: Audio Speed & Pitch Changes

Hello Manjaro,

I have a bluetooth headphones and I think I am using default bluetooth & pipewire configuration that comes with Manjaro Gnome.

The issue is:
I am having audio glitches while using bluetooth headphones.
Audio is getting faster and slower just a little bit. It is so small that I usually can’t recognize it while watching a movie. It is almost an invisible/inaudible glitch.
But while listening some music, it becomes audible. I can hear it from microtonal pitch changes during a song. I do love jazz, but this is too jazzy to listen :slight_smile:

I tried different headsets, result is the same.
I am using 5GHz WiFi connection, so bluetooth-wifi signal interference is unlikely. Plus, I am having the same issue while WiFi is off.

I wan’t to solve this issue because right now it is almost impossible to listen some music using my computer.

System:
  Kernel: 5.15.25-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.2.0
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.15-x86_64
    root=UUID=9d1957cd-266f-4059-82dc-e93d466e28ed rw zswap.enabled=0 quiet
    splash apparmor=1 security=apparmor
    resume=UUID=c42d6251-2dbd-4a5d-b453-cb3ad5d93ccb udev.log_priority=3
  Desktop: GNOME 41.4 tk: GTK 3.24.31 wm: gnome-shell dm: GDM 41.3
    Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Apple product: MacBookAir6,2 v: 1.0
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10 v: Mac-7DF21CB3ED6977E5
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Apple model: Mac-7DF21CB3ED6977E5 v: MacBookAir6,2
    serial: <superuser required> UEFI: Apple v: 122.0.0.0.0 date: 06/10/2020
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 30.4 Wh (87.1%) condition: 34.9/54.3 Wh (64.2%)
    volts: 8.2 min: 7.6 model: SMP bq20z451 type: Li-ion serial: N/A
    status: Full cycles: 2707
Memory:
  RAM: total: 3.77 GiB used: 3.05 GiB (80.7%)
  RAM Report:
    permissions: Unable to run dmidecode. Root privileges required.
CPU:
  Info: model: Intel Core i5-4250U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Haswell
    family: 6 model-id: 0x45 (69) stepping: 1 microcode: 0x26
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 2 tpc: 2 threads: 4 smt: enabled cache:
    L1: 128 KiB desc: d-2x32 KiB; i-2x32 KiB L2: 512 KiB desc: 2x256 KiB
    L3: 3 MiB desc: 1x3 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1021 high: 1251 min/max: 800/2600 scaling:
    driver: intel_cpufreq governor: schedutil cores: 1: 800 2: 1251 3: 1091
    4: 945 bogomips: 15205
  Flags: abm acpi aes aperfmperf apic arat arch_perfmon avx avx2 bmi1 bmi2
    bts clflush cmov constant_tsc cpuid cpuid_fault cx16 cx8 de ds_cpl dtes64
    dtherm dts epb ept ept_ad erms est f16c flexpriority flush_l1d fma fpu
    fsgsbase fxsr ht ibpb ibrs ida invpcid invpcid_single lahf_lm lm mca mce
    md_clear mmx monitor movbe msr mtrr nonstop_tsc nopl nx pae pat pbe pcid
    pclmulqdq pdcm pdpe1gb pebs pge pln pni popcnt pse pse36 pti pts rdrand
    rdtscp rep_good sdbg sep smep ss ssbd sse sse2 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 stibp
    syscall tm tm2 tpr_shadow tsc tsc_adjust tsc_deadline_timer vme vmx vnmi
    vpid x2apic xsave xsaveopt xtopology xtpr
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled
  Type: l1tf
    mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
  Type: spec_store_bypass
    mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp
  Type: spectre_v1
    mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional,
    IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling
  Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics vendor: Apple driver: i915
    v: kernel ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1, DP-2, HDMI-A-1, HDMI-A-2
    bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:0a26 class-ID: 0300
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.3 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.0
    compositor: gnome-shell driver: X: loaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,vesa
    gpu: i915 display-ID: 0
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: Apple Color LCD built: 2011 res: 1440x900 dpi: 128
    gamma: 1.2 size: 286x179mm (11.3x7") diag: 337mm (13.3") ratio: 16:10
    modes: 1440x900
  Message: Wayland GBM/EGL data currently not available.
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Haswell-ULT HD Audio vendor: Apple driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel bus-ID: 00:03.0 chip-ID: 8086:0a0c class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: Intel 8 Series HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
    bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:9c20 class-ID: 0403
  Device-3: Broadcom 720p FaceTime HD Camera driver: facetimehd v: kernel
    pcie: gen: 2 speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 14e4:1570
    class-ID: 0480
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.25-1-MANJARO running: yes
  Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.20 running: no
  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: yes
  Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.47 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Broadcom BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Apple
    driver: wl v: kernel modules: bcma pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1
    bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 14e4:43a0 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter>
  IP v4: <filter> type: dynamic noprefixroute scope: global
    broadcast: <filter>
  IP v6: <filter> type: noprefixroute scope: link
  WAN IP: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Apple Bluetooth USB Host Controller type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8
    bus-ID: 1-3.3:6 chip-ID: 05ac:828f class-ID: fe01
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: down bt-service: enabled,running
    rfk-block: hardware: no software: yes address: see --recommends
Logical:
  Message: No logical block device data found.
RAID:
  Message: No RAID data found.
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 113 GiB used: 63.02 GiB (55.8%)
  SMART Message: Required tool smartctl not installed. Check --recommends
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Apple model: SSD SM0128F size: 113 GiB
    block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD
    serial: <filter> rev: EA1Q scheme: GPT
  Message: No optical or floppy data found.
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 104.4 GiB size: 102.2 GiB (97.89%) used: 63.02 GiB (61.7%)
    fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2 maj-min: 8:2 label: N/A
    uuid: 9d1957cd-266f-4059-82dc-e93d466e28ed
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 300 MiB size: 299.4 MiB (99.80%)
    used: 288 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1 label: NO_LABEL
    uuid: 7440-2579
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8.3 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2
    dev: /dev/sda3 maj-min: 8:3 label: swap
    uuid: c42d6251-2dbd-4a5d-b453-cb3ad5d93ccb
  ID-2: swap-2 type: zram size: 3.77 GiB used: 1.07 GiB (28.4%)
    priority: 100 dev: /dev/zram0
Unmounted:
  Message: No unmounted partitions found.
USB:
  Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: Hi-speed hub with single TT ports: 9 rev: 2.0
    speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900
  Hub-2: 1-3:2
    info: Broadcom BCM2046B1 USB 2.0 Hub (part of BCM2046 Bluetooth) ports: 3
    rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s power: 94mA chip-ID: 0a5c:4500 class-ID: 0900
  Device-1: 1-3.3:6 info: Apple Bluetooth USB Host Controller
    type: Bluetooth driver: btusb interfaces: 4 rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s
    chip-ID: 05ac:828f class-ID: fe01
  Device-2: 1-5:3 info: Apple Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
    type: HID,Keyboard,Mouse driver: apple,bcm5974,usbhid interfaces: 3 rev: 2.0
    speed: 12 Mb/s power: 500mA chip-ID: 05ac:0291 class-ID: 0301
    serial: <filter>
  Hub-3: 2-0:1 info: Super-speed hub ports: 4 rev: 3.0 speed: 5 Gb/s
    chip-ID: 1d6b:0003 class-ID: 0900
  Device-1: 2-3:2 info: Apple Internal Memory Card Reader type: Mass Storage
    driver: usb-storage interfaces: 1 rev: 3.0 speed: 5 Gb/s power: 896mA
    chip-ID: 05ac:8406 class-ID: 0806 serial: <filter>
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 64.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
  Processes: 242 Uptime: 17h 46m wakeups: 58 Init: systemd v: 250
  tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 11.2.0 Packages: 1355 pacman: 1327 lib: 327
  flatpak: 28 Shell: Zsh v: 5.8.1 running-in: guake inxi: 3.3.13

Perhaps it might make sense to try some different combinations so the cause might be further isolated, just some ideas:

  • manjaro on another laptop (boot from USB, no need to install),
  • use one of those cheap USB bluetooth dongles and see if the problem occurs with that as well
  • another linux distro booted from USB on the same laptop
  • try a few different kernel versions

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Do not post no-content replies

Please advise make/model of Bluetooth headphones

bluetooth-wifi signal interference is unlikely

I suggest you consider installing linssid to check local area usage of 2.4GHz

I think I am using default bluetooth & pipewire configuration

System data shows default sound server PulseAudio is running

Please post more information about audio configuration

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