I’ve been loving this storytelling podcast about forgotten historical events, but recently, whenever I listen on my Bluetooth earbuds during my commute, the audio sounds oddly muffled and distant. It’s weird because the same episode played through my phone’s speakers or wired headphones sounds crystal clear. I tried resetting the earbuds and even updating the podcast app, but no luck. I’m guessing it might be some kind of compression or codec issue specific to the wireless connection, but I’m not sure. The earbuds are a pretty popular brand, so I’m surprised it’s only happening with this particular podcast and not others. Has anyone else experienced this kind of selective audio drop in quality on Bluetooth devices? Should I try switching apps or messing with audio settings like equalizers? Or could it be something about how the podcast files are encoded? Would love to hear if you’ve found any fixes or if it’s just a Bluetooth quirk I have to live with.

That muffled Bluetooth sound on just one podcast definitely sounds like an encoding or bitrate mismatch issue. Some podcasts use variable bitrate or different audio formats that might not play nicely with certain Bluetooth codecs. Since you mentioned other podcasts sound fine, it’s probably not your earbuds or app in general.

One quick test: try downloading the episode and playing it offline instead of streaming. Sometimes streaming apps apply extra compression or switch codecs on the fly, which can mess with quality over Bluetooth. Also, toggling your phone’s Bluetooth codec settings (like switching between AAC, aptX, or SBC if your phone supports it) might help if your earbuds support multiple codecs.

Switching podcast apps could be worth a shot too - some apps handle audio files differently, especially with how they buffer or process streams. If you want to geek out, you could even check the file’s audio specs with a media info tool to see if it’s using an unusual format or bitrate.