Headphones are Mono and Low Quality Sound - WASAPI Shared

[Scott Kendrick]

I had to set up an entirely new system due to a hard drive failure. I have a weird issue where when I'm using my bluetooth headphones, the sound quality out of cakewalk is really poor. I can tell it's mono and is generally low quality. I'm using WASAPI and all the settings seem to look right. Playing music through other apps, or youtube music for example is fine. I've seen/experienced issues in the past where headphones are thought of a headset instead and the quality degrades, but best I can tell - windows sees this as headphones for music (and as I said - works everywhere but cakewalk).

This is Windows 11 if that is any potential cause. Is there a setting that I can check to fix?

(BTW the master bus is set to stereo)

[Scott Kendrick]

well... i restarted cakewalk and some how it resolved itself.

[John Vere]

Bluetooth has around 40 ms of latency and is therefore a useless format for professional audio production 

[Byron Dickens]

Or amateur audio production for that matter.

[Scott Kendrick]

thanks for the input - I only use these when doing rough or quick mixes and disconnected from my studio monitors and audio interface. Not sure I get the latency issue - I would assume the entire system (all tracks) would have the same latency and never had any issue with that latency impacting the mix. I would think that would only be an issue if I was trying to record with them.

[Scott Kendrick]

This issue has cropped up again... I don't understand why - perfectly good pair of stereo headphones, playing everyting outside of cakewalk in stereo, cakewalk will only play mono. Any settings to suggest checking? I notice in Audio Profiles it shows AKG Y50BT (1 in, 1 out)... I'm assuming the 1 out is suggesting a single channel out vs. stereo. I used to work with these all the  time.

Any guidance appreciated.

[John Vere]

And wait another month for a reply?

 

[Starship Krupa]

Try using WASAPI Exclusive, maybe?

You can get an excellent-sounding set of wired cans for $35 I've owned both of these and they sound great:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1301767-REG/superlux_hd_681_professional_semi_open_studio_headphones.html/

https://www.amazon.com/Superlux-HD-681-Professional-Monitoring-Headphones/dp/B00CAG1ZG0/ref=asc_df_B00CAG1ZG0/

[Jan Deeben]

I'd suggest to use ASIO4ALL. I know that, when enabling it, CbB comes up with a message that 'ASIO4ALL is known to be buggy' etc, but for some reason it works way better for me (especially with larger projects that have more tracks and many FX). 

[scook]

23 minutes ago, Jan Deeben said:

I'd suggest to use ASIO4ALL. I know that, when enabling it, CbB comes up with a message that 'ASIO4ALL is known to be buggy' etc, but for some reason it works way better for me (especially with larger projects that have more tracks and many FX). 

This is not good advice.

I replied to your thread and use of ASIO4All.

There is a real possibility the generic drivers are preventing the factory driver from working correctly.

[Byron Dickens]

2 hours ago, Jan Deeben said:

I'd suggest to use ASIO4ALL. I know that, when enabling it, CbB comes up with a message that 'ASIO4ALL is known to be buggy' etc, but for some reason it works way better for me (especially with larger projects that have more tracks and many FX). 

Terrible advice. I won't say ASIO4ALL is garbage because I get in trouble every time I do but it is a bandaid at best.

[John Vere]

Forgetit.

Edited May 12, 2022 by John Vere