Wired in handsets get best results

I had a most bizarre, and not totally satisfactory conversation with my brother the other day. For some reason Skype allowed us to see each other but neither of us could hear what the other was saying. As he has a full set of beard and moustache he is not easy to lipread, so we talked on the phone while looking at each other! Even this was not totally satisfactory, because he uses a cordless handset, which like mobile phones, has a reduced bandwidth, so he comes over to me as being muffled. By comparison wired in handsets generally produce a much clearer sound to me, so I offered to send him my redundant corded handsets, but that did not go down particularly well.