January 10, 2026

Multi-Stream Audio: Connect Two Bluetooth Headphones on Arch Linux

A guide to routing audio to two Bluetooth headphones simultaneously on Arch Linux using PipeWire, qjackctl, and pavucontrol.

If you’ve ever tried to watch a movie with a friend on a laptop, you’ve probably faced the “one earbud each” struggle. Yesterday, my friend and I wanted the full cinematic experience without sharing earpieces. Since I’m using Arch Linux (btw), I knew there had to be a way to route audio to two Bluetooth devices simultaneously.

PipeWire makes this surprisingly simple once you visualize the “patchbay.” Here is how I did it.

Prerequisites

First, you’ll need to install the necessary tools to interface with PipeWire via the JACK API and a visual controller.

sudo pacman -S pipewire-jack qjackctl pavucontrol

The Setup

1. Connect your Hardware

Pair and connect both Bluetooth headphones to your system as you normally would via bluetui or your GUI manager.

2. Launch the Patchbay

We use qjackctl as a visual bridge. Since we are using PipeWire, we need to run it through the pw-jack wrapper so it sees your modern audio nodes:

pw-jack qjackctl &

3. Routing the Audio

The magic happens in the Graph (or Patchbay) window.

  1. In qjackctl, click the Graph button.
  2. Look for your Bluetooth internal playback nodes. These represent your system’s audio output.
  3. Identify your two headphones (they usually appear as playback_FL and playback_FR under the device name).
  4. The Link: Simply click and drag a line from your system’s output_FL/FR to the playback ports of both devices.

4. Level Matching

Open pavucontrol (PulseAudio Volume Control) to adjust the individual volumes of each headset, as one friend might prefer it louder than the other.