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I connected my Haylou GT2 bluetooth earbuds to my Windows 10 Desktop. However there is audio lag when I watch Youtube. People are talking and their mouth movements don't match with the audio, it might be off by 100-500 milliseconds.

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  • Too bad youtube's built-in player has such limited controls; AV desync is sometimes present in original uploads, too. A good player will let you tweak that on the fly during playback, while streaming from youtube. (e.g. mpv.io has keyboard controls to AV sync (numpad + and -), and can stream from youtube with youtube-dl. I do that on Linux, where it's easy to copy/paste a URL to a command-line) Sep 26, 2020 at 18:43
  • I was watching a Linus Tech Tips video from 2020, it did not have lag coming from my speakers, only the earbuds. Also turning off the Windows Audio Enhancements worked.
    – zwei7
    Sep 27, 2020 at 18:54
  • Sure, you want your setup not to introduce addition audio latency. Having to do that manually for every video because of a bad driver / hardware setup would suck, and not be usable for real-time 2-way chats or whatever. But when I come across the occasional video that has AV desync, I can fix the problem by opening it in a better player. If it was at all convenient in youtube's standard player built-in to the web page, you could also have worked around it that way if any of the "effects" were actually ones you wanted. Sep 27, 2020 at 19:02

3 Answers 3

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Bluetooth headphones always have additional latency because of encoding, transmission, buffering and decoding of the audio stream. The latencies I have seen have varied from 30 ms to nearly a second. Some video players are able to correct for latency, but not all. An additional problem is that while Bluetooth headphones are supposed to report their latency to the computer or phone to allow latency correction, some headphones either report wrong number or nothing at all. This problem is most often found in cheap headphones like Xiaomi, but some name brands do it too. For these, synchronizing audio and video is impossible without separate calibration.

Edit: According to OP's self-answer, disabling audio "enhancement" fixed the problem, and "enhanced" audio syncs correctly when played from built in speaker. The most probable explanation is that both the headset and "enhancement" have correct latency compensation, but when "enhancement" is used, the latency from Bluetooth is not used in synchronization. This is a bug in the audio driver.

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  • Small correction: I wouldn't say it's impossible without separate calibration as this problem is solved on macOS. I have multiple pairs of BT headphones and they only have a varying degree of latency, using e.g. YT, on Windows but not on macOS.
    – kiler129
    Sep 26, 2020 at 23:47
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    To clarify, most Bluetooth headphones report correct latency so that audio and video can be synchronized. The separate calibration is needed for headphones that don't get it right.
    – ojs
    Sep 27, 2020 at 2:40
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    I’d note that by most definitions, Xiaomi is a name brand.
    – Tim
    Sep 28, 2020 at 19:30
  • I develop an audio related app, and have dealt with a few Xiaomi devices because we get much more complaints about them than their proportion of user base. Most of them could be described as cheap trash, but looks like they have pivoted to expensive trash.
    – ojs
    Sep 29, 2020 at 7:57
  • Should I change the audio driver?
    – zwei7
    Sep 29, 2020 at 16:01
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You may have Audio Enhancements enabled. This causes a delay in the sound (in addition to the delay already present from Bluetooth headphones).

To disable this feature:

  1. Right Click the speaker icon next to your clock calendar at the bottom right of your desktop
  2. Select Troubleshoot sound problems
  3. Select your audio device, it should be listed as Haylou-GT2_R and includes (Current Default Device) in the description, click next
  4. Select Yes, Open Audio Enhancements
  5. In the Enhancements tab, checkmark Disable all enhancements
  6. Select OK

Your sound will cut out for 1 second and come back without lag

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  • 3
    This worked for me. That is why I posted the answer and the question.
    – zwei7
    Sep 27, 2020 at 18:55
  • It's not the whole story. If audio sync is correct both with built in speaker with "audio enhancement" and with Bluetooth headphones without the "enhancement", the most probable explanation is that both "enhancement" and Bluetooth headset have correct latency correction, but the "enhancement" doesn't add the latency from Bluetooth to the total latency.
    – ojs
    Sep 28, 2020 at 8:16
  • Another, although thankfully legacy, reason can be bad/old audio codec. And some bluetooth drivers are simply horrible so sometimes best way to fix is is to go for good dongle.
    – PTwr
    Sep 28, 2020 at 10:45
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If the lag is consistent, it's likely that there's just a degree of latency. Some earphones will be a little bit out (like my own - on every device I own they seem to be about 50ms out). If it's not, try @zwei7's method of disabling enhancements. I don't have access to your model of earphones so I can't test this out, unfortunately.

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