I made some scripts to help me see what codecs are supported by my Bluetooth audio devices, and select the one I want.

My devices were coming up with the sbc codec which is the most basic codec, but they support higher-bitrate codecs. Selection is a little clumsy on my headless, ssh-access-only Linux box that I’m playing audio from.

My devices support for example:

sbc: SBC
sbc_xq_453: SBC XQ 453kbps
sbc_xq_512: SBC XQ 512kbps
sbc_xq_552: SBC XQ 552kbps

I’m surprised my devices only support sbc codecs and not aac/mp3/whatever else. Actually, I don’t know what’s even typical! Do other operating systems use other codecs? I don’t know! Maybe I’ll try to find out what codecs these devices use on macOS or Windows someday.

It’s also possible I’m not seeing other options here because pulseaudio only supports sbc for Bluetooth. I have read that pipewire has better Bluetooth codec support, but I’m not currently willing to swap a working audio setup (pulseaudio) for one that might need tweaking (pipewire).

The scripts are available on GitHub.

Current mood: 😀 accomplished
Current music: Big Wreck - Hey Mama