Managing soundcards and audio devices

USB and Bluetooth audio devices are individual sound cards, which means that connecting a Bluetooth headset doesn't work like connecting a headset via 3.5mm audio jack, where jack sensing assumes that you want to play audio through the recently connected headset instead of the laptop speakers.

Therefore when adding new audio devices like Bluetooth or USB headsets and speakers as well es new soundcards or audio interfaces, you should check your configuration to make sure that the sound is played by the device you intend to use. The easiest way is via the Sound Indicator in Unity or via System Settings > Sound:

If your new connected device is the Sennheiser BTD 500 USB in this example, then you should check that it is selected in the Play sound through list.

Alternatively you can use PulseAudio Volume Control to manage your sound cards. It provides many more options such as routing only certain streams (sound from applications) to certain devices. Some applications such as VLC (via package vlc-plugin-pulse) also offer to choose the audio device independently.

Related topics and questions

• For KDE and Kubuntu, take a look at Phonon.


• Question: Is there any Sound enhancers/equalizer?


• Question: How to play music, coming from the microphone jack?


• Question: How to play audio from different applications on different output devices?


• For further troubleshooting see the Debugging Sound Problems guide.