What is a good alternative for a USB/Bluetooth office/WFH headset with a noise canceling _microphone_ (no background voices/noise), especially one that would also work on Linux?
Jabra Elite2 40 for example looked almost perfect, but was almost unusable on Linux/without their custom software.
I was going to recommend the Sony WH-1000XM4 (which are more expensive). But I wanted to Google Linux support first and I ran into this discussion on Reddit [0], it sounds like the issue is not with the headphones (any BT headphones you choose) but with Pulse Audio.
A problem with Linux support for Bluetooth audio? Say it isn't so! I don't understand why people are surprised that using Bluetooth devices on Linux frequently requires "their custom software". This is why.
On the flip side, Linux audio supports things that MacOS and Windows do not. Do you have 990kbps LDAC running on your desktop? Probably not if you aren't on Android or Linux. With PipeWire, I feel pretty comfortable saying Linux has Mac and Windows beat with wireless audio compatibility. Yes, Pulseaudio/ALSA and Jack kinda suck. That's a pretty dead horse to beat when you consider the offerings on... other platforms.
Of course I do, I wanted to be sure for myself that the difference is inaudible on Windows like it is on Android. I bought an adapter which supports it and confirmed it was transmitting it, then did my a/b/x testing.
It sounds like you agree with me, the default Linux support for Bluetooth audio is bad and requires custom workarounds to fix. That's exactly what I said.
I'm not sure what you meant by "stock in distros", but I hope you don't mean it comes installed and configured out of the box on all distros, as that is emphatically not the case:
It is stock in Fedora, and it's the "driver" in Ubuntu just that apps are using ALSA/Pulse emulation libs, not the native ones. This has no effect on the BT support. Also, it's just Ubuntu being weird again.
Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distro. If Ubuntu requires workarounds to get audio working, then Linux requires workarounds to get audio working. No whatabouts, no "it just needs one quick thing", if it doesn't just work then it doesn't just work.
PipeWire supersedes Pulseaudio. End of discussion. This position is like arguing that Windows 11 isn't the future because most people are still on Windows 10; it's most definitely wrong and relies on circumstance.
You really want to get pedantic? "Linux" isn't Ubuntu, nor is it Fedora nor Arch nor Debian or any of those distros. Linux is a kernel, and it supports several audio backends (or none at all). If we're comparing with Darwin/NT, neither of them "just work" with audio since none of them ship with it. If we're comparing OSes, then we're talking about Monterey vs Windows 11 vs Linux With The Latest Tech. Not Windows 10 just because more people use it. Not Monterey just because it was better.
That's a disadvantage for Linux in most respects since the new "solutions" for desktop Linux are pretty awful (Wayland, Flatpak, GTK4/Libadwaita, etc). Let it be known that desktop audio is not one of those issues anymore, though.
This entire post is completely missing my point. I am, and have been been for the entirety of this discussion, talking about what the situation is today. Today, audio is broken on desktop Linux. Other OSes might have the same problem or they might not. Tomorrow might be different. I'll even go so far as to say it will probably be different.
But today, if you download the most popular Linux distro from Canonical and install it on your PC, you are going to have audio issues out of the box. Saying anything else is gaslighting, and it is the main reason desktop Linux fails. People are told "it's good now, trust us!". So they install it, their headphones don't work, they roll their eyes and say "Linux gonna Linux" and go back to their previous OS.
You're also missing the other side of that coin: that's not my problem. I don't care how you're coping with getting things configured or set up correctly, I sure as shit don't care if people aren't getting it working on their box, and I definitely don't care about how "other people" view Linux. Why should I be afraid of anecdotal desktop Linux failures if it works fine for me?
Linux is not a desktop operating system. By default, it has no audio configuration. Distros package whatever software is considered "current" at the date of their LTS cutoff; Ubuntu is one of them. Ubuntu is using outdated software, and will be stuck that way for a couple years. Currently, Linux audio is fine. You're the one using broken software and blaming others.
don't move the goalposts, commenter above was comparing situation to major desktop OSes, which require even more obscure stuff so they don't work even more than Linux "does"
I've used the Poly Voyager Focus, Poly Voyager 6200 and Shokz OpenComm (with Avantree DG80 dongle) with good results. They don't require custom software, but they do require using the provided dongle (or 3rd party dongle for the OpenComm) because PulseAudio doesn't support wide band speech. Installing PipeWire is another option (or waiting for your distribution to switch to it).
With a 3rd party dongle like the Avantree DG80 you can use any bluetooth headset and don't need to worry about the Linux support part. The main disadvantage I found is that you have to manually switch between headset mode and HiFi headphones mode.
I also have the Poly Voyager 8200, but I haven't used it as a headset enough to give a definitive assessment, but based on what I've tried and the results from the other Poly products I expect it to be good.
I also tried the Poly Voyager 5200, but I didn't like the speaker sound quality with it being a single ear device.
Thank you for all the suggestions, your answer is exactly what I was hoping for!
It sounds like Avantree DG80 might solve my issues on Linux, I never realized I could outsource the entire Bluetooth audio headache to a generic dongle and get regular audio out of it.
I don't know about noise-cancelling, didn't even know there were headphones doing that.
But I have the Jabra Engage 75 (not Engage2) and I'm very happy with them. The mic doesn't pick up other voices in the house, since it sits 1 cm from my mouth and is fairly directional.
Also, the phones and base don't seem to communicate over Bluetooth because the range is great: more than 10 m through a thick house wall. I also don't notice the lag. The base is connected to the PC via USB. It also supports BT for connecting to a phone. And the volume controls on the phones affect the volume reported by Pipewire. The only thing that doesn't interact with PW is the Mic mute button. I don't have any kind of Jabra software installed - and there isn't any for Linux (they only have an SDK).
My only gripe with them is that they always prioritize my phone, so whenever I get a random notification they will cut the audio from the conference on the PC in order to play the "ding".
Jabra Elite2 40 for example looked almost perfect, but was almost unusable on Linux/without their custom software.