You must never use them to make calls. (The audio quality is absolutely awful when in Self Voice mode, which is enabled for anything that uses the mic, and you can’t disable it.)
I've used for calls on Android and not iOS since 2016. While walking to/from work. With lots of traffic noise. Sometimes people don't even know I'm walking, they are that good. QC35's here.
The only thing that gets me is wind. Wind is wicked bad for calls. Even for music. The wind makes a very loud sound when it hits the over-the-ear cups from the rear. I've taken to wearing a hoodie when I walk in wind, and that solves it. Mostly. Walking with a hoodie when it's not really cold is not fun, as I get really hot.
I’m not talking about how you sound on the other end, I’m talking about how the audio quality drops to another profile whenever the mic is active, and that profile has the sound quality of a POTS phone connection from the 90s.
Steps to reproduce:
-listen to music
-make a call at the same time (such that the mic is active)
-the music you were listening to now sounds like you’re hearing it through an old telephone, with the quality you would expect from hearing some “on hold” music.
This sounds contrived (why would you listen to music and make a phone call at the same time?) but in reality each of these modes is a separate Bluetooth profile, and the latter of the two is used whenever the mic is active (for me... that’s across iOS, macOS and Windows. I’ve not tried it on android.) So, if you’re ever using software that holds the mic open, you basically can’t use the QC35’s for any high fidelity audio.
> The only thing that gets me is wind. Wind is wicked bad for calls. Even for music. The wind makes a very loud sound when it hits the over-the-ear cups from the rear.
Switch from High to Low cancellation mode in wind and the static pops should go away.
