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I'm new to Linux, so I hope I'll be giving you helpful info here. On my last (recently deceased) laptop, I was running Ubuntu 14.04, and on that system my bluetooth Sony MDR-ZX770BT stereo headphones worked beautifully.

Now I have a brand new Lenovo G50-70 64-bit notebook with Ubuntu 16.04 preinstalled. The audio device is Haswell-ULT HD Audio Controller by Intel.

The headphones work now, but only in mono. When I look at sound settings, and check sound there, it tells me the sound is mono. Mono sound is coming through both sides of the headphone. I also think the built-in speakers are putting out mono, the sound is not good at all.

I've installed both blueman and pulseaudio controller. While pulseaudio will allow me to try both modes (headset and A2DP sink), blueman tells me that only headset mode will work, and the error message I get in blueman is "failed to change profile to a2dp_sink".

I've googled and checked here and can't find anything concerning this specific problem. It doesn't help that I'm ignorant of audio matters. I brought up alsamixer in the terminal, but don't understand what I'm looking at.

I'll be happy to post any logs once I know how to get to them.

Thank you in advance for any help you can give.

Kate W.
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5 Answers5

34

I solve my mono headphone problem that comes out after upgrading from 14.04 to 16.04

open terminal and start bluetooth controller sequence

$ bluetoothctl

Now the environmet intermenal should be changed to [bluetooth]# there is list of devices with MAC address and one of them should be your headphone. Connect device with its mac adress like

[bluetooth]# connect AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF

Your device now connected to your bluetooth device. Now where magic happens. Open another terminal and start the bluetooth device:

$ sudo service bluetooth restart

Now return to the tab with the environment [bluetooth]# Your device is disconnected after restarting bluetooth. Connect it again: [bluetooth]# connect AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF

Ta Da! This solves my problem. You can chach from sound settings That Your headset profile is set on High Fidelity Playback(A2DP Sink)

osencan
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  • Thanks this worked great (when the highest voted answer didn't, because I didn't have a "High Fidelity Playback" option to select). – machineghost Jul 13 '18 at 20:24
  • Worked like a charm for me too. Now listening to Pandora in stereo on my Bose QC35 - soo much better! Thanks. – Reid Spencer Oct 01 '18 at 19:30
  • Thank you so much! Finally all my bluetooth problems have been solved :D – Jesbus Nov 30 '18 at 10:33
  • Can still confirm on "No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS Release: 18.04 Codename: bionic" – Christopher Will Dec 07 '18 at 22:20
  • This should be the validated answer. Did the trick for me too – Cécile Fecherolle Mar 25 '19 at 15:19
  • Oh nice, thanks! Worked for Sony WH-1000XM3 for Ubuntu 19.04. Don't know tech details behind bluetooth connection in Ubuntu, but is there reason why it works with bluetoothctl but isn't working when connecting by default through the UI ? – Jurosh Jul 13 '19 at 22:54
  • worked for my JBL headset on ubuntu 20.04 thanks! under one user account they worked fine, under another, no sound, and the test button only showed mono. After this boom! stereo working sound – dan carter Sep 30 '20 at 08:28
  • Still have mono sound :/ – Tobias Theel Oct 21 '20 at 09:24
  • It works but now I lost a chance to use mic from the headphones. – dzieciou Nov 05 '20 at 16:05
  • Worked OK, until I set the mic to the one in the headset and it was back to Mono. Is it Ubuntu or my Headset? I use MPOW 059 Pro – 170730350 Feb 04 '21 at 07:06
9

If your headset supports STEREO, you can change the settings at SOUND PREFERENCES.

(Assuming you successfully connected your BT headset)

  1. Go to System-Preferences-Sound
  2. Click HARDWARE Tab. You should see your Bluetooth headset here.
  3. Select Your Bluetooth headset
  4. At the lower part of the Hardware tab, Select "High Fidelity Playback (A2DP)

You should have STEREO sound now.

Good luck.

Aghasi Grigoryan
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  • This is great advice, if there is a "High Fidelity Playback" option. But if you're like me, and that option was there yesterday, but is now gone and the only options are "Headset Head Unit (HSP/HFP)" and "Off" it doesn't help. – machineghost Jul 13 '18 at 20:21
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    Does not help, the A2DP profile was already selected, changing back and forth does also not help – Tobias Theel Oct 21 '20 at 09:20
  • ??? No "hardware" tab in 22.04 LTS. – Kyle Dec 02 '23 at 18:30
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If your device can connect to multiple devices and none of the above solutions work, disconnect all other devices(not unpair, just turn off bluetooth for those devices) and it should work. This is the only solution that works for my Sony WH-1000XM4.

bluelurker
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  • It is interesting how it worked for me on Pop Os 22.04. The headset was in "handsfree" mode and it was connected on a Windows machine as well. Disconnecting the device from the Windows machine did connect it as "headset". I have a JBL device. Thank you for this tip. – WeidMaster Sep 20 '22 at 17:23
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Try this (if the other suggested solutions didn't help):

sudo alsa force-reload

(Solved on Ubuntu 20.04 for Sony WH-CH520)

MDH

Michael D.
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There is an existing work around that you can find here.

The description is for KDE, but it can easily be adapted to unity. It feels like it might not work it takes a couple tries to get the right connect/disconnect and change profile sequence.

Hope it helps.

Pat

Community
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RenoP
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    I tried that a couple of days ago. No dice. I also updated the RTL8723BE bluetooth driver in hopes that would work. Nope. I have a conversation ongoing at ubuntuforums.org, but folks are stumped. I submitted a bug report yesterday. It was kind of you to respond!! – Kate W. Aug 30 '16 at 03:57