How to turn audio to single channel

Hey, I’ve been trying to switch my audio on my surround sound headphones to single channel because it’s better for listening to music but whenever I switch to mono audio sound does not work. Is there any work around? Thanks!

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Found this thread:

I get more results converting stereo to mono using PulseEffects. There is a plugin “Stereo Tools” put in “mode” ED > E+D(Sum Mono E+D)

Most headphones only have one speaker in each earcup and are only capable of stereo sound with software simulation of surround sound

Archwiki suggests using ladspa-bs2b for simulating surround sound in headphones
PulseAudio/Examples - Binaural Headphones | ArchWiki

You can try Bauer Stereo to Binaural (BS2B) processing in Audacious to see if it works for you before making system-wide changes

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But what @Kunfuzzle wants is mono output, if I understand right.

I was thinking this may be an XY problem

OP wants better headphone audio from surround sound. Remixing to mono is one solution for this, but remixing to binaural might be better

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You can mix down a stereo audio stream into a mono stream that’s piped to both the left and right channels, and then mute one of the channels. Use PulseEffects (the Stereo Tools function and the “Stereo Matrix” within that) to do the former and then just the built in sound controls to mute one sound channel.

That is if you’re using KDE Plasma. I’m not sure about gnome or other desktop environments.

The latest version of Pulseeffects requires replacement of PulseAudio with Pipewire

There is another package pulseeffects-legacy that does not require Pipewire for users that want to continue using PulseAudio