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I encounter this issue with a different headset (Steelseries something or other) and both a MacBook Pro and a Lenovo something or other.

As soon as the headset is told to turn on the mic, quality drops significantly.

I figured it was by design, and using a better codec/more bandwidth whenever it could afford to, but dropping down to half that in order to run the mic channel side by side.

I have seen this happen when using Siri or calling people on iOS.

All of my iOS devices are rather new, perhaps it depends on which one. I've used Siri, made calls, and spoke in channels on Discord without having it happen on my iPhones 7 and XS, and 2018 iPad. In comparison, my Macs are a 2013 Macbook Pro (running Mojave) and a Hackintosh desktop (still on High Sierra).

I’m using an iPhone SE, so it might be that it doesn’t have the necessary features to support this?

If I play PUBG Mobile on iOS with AirPods and activate the microphone ingame, the sound immediately turns to some weird mono channel low quality stuff. I always thought this was some kind of bug in the game, but apparently, this thread is the real answer.