I don't get it. They are wireless, noise-canceling headphones, not communication headsets. They are super expensive and I'm sure excellent for music/listening, but have no boom and are in no way meant to be used for serious/frequent calls. Heck, their tagline is "only music; nothing else". If THAT's not a hint, I don't know what is...

It's depressing to think that a $20 headset may have been a better investment than the $300 headphones :<

Being good as headphones does not necessarily make a headset bad as a microphone.

I have a set of Bluetooth Plantronics Backbeat PRO. There is no boom mic, but everyone I have talked to on cell phone with them has said they sound good. Even when I am out for a walk they filter out all the vehicle noise and wind.

Hmm; that's fascinating - I am skeptical only because I happen (no kidding:) to own it, and they are the example I used in another comment - people can hear me typing, my wife in another room, etc. When I'm outside, they multiplied the wind as it gets caught between the thick headband and my hair and then picked up by microphone :-/

(I also tend to speak too loud with them, as they block outside noise effectively, but that's a "user error" thing :)

I enjoy them as headphones - convenient, simple to pair, comfy - but they are specifically the reason why I pursued a boom headset and why I'll never go back :)

Without testing I cannot speak to our differing experience; I DO notice that some friends/colleagues of mine have a very very low threshold of what "sounds good" - if they can even remotely understand me, it's "Fine". They are also the ones who don't mind 30 people joining with laptop mic/speakers and the muffled/delayed/garbled sound that results... Others provide much more critical feedback (calling my 75 year old father is a great way to test a new headset :P )

Or, you may have found a button I haven't! :=>

I have the XM2 and the main issue is using the microphone on a laptop drops it to the “hands free” bluetooth profile where both the mic and audio out use a super low bandwidth codec that sounds awful.

When I disable the mic the audio quality goes way up as it switches back to a higher bandwidth codec. It’s super annoying.

I’m not sure how the apple airpods get around this, I think something to do with their custom chip.

AirPods also drop quality when the mic is in use!

I’ve found if you have the headset in noise cancelling mode it messes with the mic and makes it worse. They may have patched it but was bad enough I stopped using them too.