One of the wireless connectivity issues in Windows 11 is the degradation of audio quality over Bluetooth when connecting to a call. This issue is caused by the characteristics of Bluetooth Classic Audio, and to solve it, Microsoft is introducing LE Audio, a feature built on top of Bluetooth Low Energy.
Bluetooth Classic Audio has two operating modes: Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) and Hands-Free Profile (HFP). While A2DP provides high-quality audio, it does not allow the use of a microphone. HFP, on the other hand, allows the microphone to be enabled, but in return causes problems with audio quality.
The modern LE Audio architecture, which will replace A2DP and HFP, uses a single profile for both media playback and voice communication. Headphones and earbuds will use the Telephony and Media Profile (TMAP). Assistive listening devices, such as hearing aids and cochlear implants, use the Hearing Access Profile (HAP).
The legacy HFP standard used an 8kHz sampling rate, which resulted in poorer sound quality, even though most Bluetooth headsets now support improved audio compression. Instead, LE Audio uses higher "ultra-wideband" audio fidelity with a 32kHz sampling rate when using the microphone in apps like Teams or Discord. This allows you to use the microphone without any loss of quality.
To take advantage of the new feature, users need a Bluetooth headset and a Windows 11 PC with LE Audio support. Currently, the system requires that the computer has the latest Windows 11 version 24H2 and audio driver updates installed.