I have always had difficulties with doing this on linux. It is a relatively simple procedure on Windows.
It has become even more complicated with the advent of pipewire especially during the transition from pulseaudio when they both run simultaneously.
My need is quite simple. After a misspent youth in a band where I was always on the left hand side of the stage next to the stack of amplifiers my hearing has been impaired particularly on the right ear.
When settling down to watch a film, the lovely Jane continually complains I have the sound level too high, so I therefore have a need to direct the sound output to both the speakers and my bluetooth headphones simultaneously.
With Windows it is a few mouse clicks and is done so easily.
Linux is a total dog’s breakfast trying to achieve the same result.
From my understanding, the way it works is a many stage approach.
create a dummy sink. (cli only using something called pactl)
ascertain the sink’s name by using something like this: ‘’‘wpctl status | grep -A5 “Sinks:”’‘’
ascertain the normal sound sink’s name using the above
Combine the two sinks using some esoteric method that just lost me…this is where I gave up.
Has anyone actually managed to do this using legacy pulseaudio and pipewire?
I am mystified why such a presumably common use case has been made so difficult to achieve in Linux.
I thought I was pretty clued up for an old fart, I have looked after many servers and at one stage was the sysop for a company with 250 desktops and their servers, but this simple task has me flummoxed.
I’m not using plucky, and not using the KDE Plasma Desktop (not Kubuntu 25.04), but I grabbed a pair of headphones & plugged them into this box (Lubuntu’s LXQt desktop & resolute or what will be 26.04 on release).
Yep, with the headphones plugged in my speakers went dead, pull out headphone cord & speakers returned to providing my background music.
I opened pavucontrol (Pulse Audio Volume Control; PipeWire maybe controlling my audio, but my box is still using PulseAudio user controls) and go to the Configuration tab.
When the Built-in Audio is set to Analog Stereo Output (where it was), the sound will be EITHER headphones OR the speaker jack at the back of my box (which goes to my speakers).
By switching the Built-in Audio to Analog Stereo Duplex though, I’m getting sound out of the headphones (plugged in at the front of my box) and speakers (which is using a jack at the back of my box).
I’m no expert here, but it’s how I achieved it on this box (just then as test), with this PC and my current desktop.
FYI: This box is a multi-desktop install; I’m just logged into a Lubuntu session, but I’d expect it’d work on whatever desktop I was using. What options you see in the Profile setting of Built-in Audio may differ though, as your hardware will likely differ.
@guiverc Thank you for your reply. Interesting you were able to get it to work. The thing I don’t understand is the analogue bit.
Why analogue?
How do I get that when my only video and audio connection is via HDMI? I am presuming the analogue is via the audio sockets on the rear of your computer. I can’t use them as my computer is in the loft and I have 4 cables coming into my living room from the loft, HDMI, USB3, Cat5e and a remote control cable for my tv card.
Yeah the analog [analogue] will be because I’m using 3.5mm connections (ie. analog) for my audio, and NOT digital connections.
As far as I’m aware, my monitors don’t have any speakers#1, so I can’t test further (besides my monitors are mostly connected using DVI cables so no audio signal anyway)
#1: technically two of my (5) monitors may have speakers, they have 3.5mm inputs, but I’ve never wanted to try it assuming sound would be ‘tinny’ anyway
I have used qwgraph but before qwgraph will work, you have to actually create the sinks before they show up in qwgraph.
That is the crazily difficult issue, the hoops to acsertain the correct sinks, you then have to use pactl to do more stuff, it’s just way too complicated, and I am one who is quite comfortable with the cli and simple coding; what of the average user who isn’t au fait with the more esoteric side of Linux use?
@ashleythorne That may be the case for you perhaps using the analogue outputs.
It is certainly not the case for HDMI audio passthrough connections. On qwgraph all that is there when it is opened is the current sound source. There is nowhere to create new sinks, or new combined sinks or anything else. They must be created via the cli first to show up in qwgraph.
OK so no-one has a suitable solution. It does seem strange that a simple point-and-click procedure in Windows is presented as a multi-task, haphazard and totally unreliable procedure in Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is free and maintained by volunteers, I should be glad that most things work as well as they do, I should not let my frustrations take that fact away from my posts, I am extremely grateful for all their hard work.
I don’t know how this works so my suggestion may not be pertinent.
Admittedly, I cannot plug in my headphones (3.5mm jack) to the front of my PC and output sound simultaneously to both headphones and monitor speakers (via HDMI).
However, this is a possible, inexpensive and simple solution.
Purchase a cheap ‘n’ cheerful USB Sound Card
Using Ubuntu 25.10 & Gnome 49
Install Helvum
Plug the headphones into the USB Sound Card
Open Rhythmbox and the sound is directed to the USB
Open the monitor speakers and add the path graphically to the speakers via Helvum
One source = Rhythmbox
Two outputs = USB Audio Adaptor & Digital Stereo HDMI
Connecting the HDMI playback the sound works, albeit in 5.1 instead of 7.1 but it works. Why and what is different I have no idea. I just hope it will be reproducible. I’ll make as solved. Thanks again for persevering.
