When you listen to music through your Windows 10 PC, the output is usually stereophonic – that is, sound is reproduced through two channels – left and right. You can also attach different types of sound systems that require more than two channels such as 5.1 surround sound system with your PC. It may depend on the type of sound processing hardware of your PC, how many different types of sound systems are supported by your PC. For example, my Lenono laptop supports 7.1 DTS while my Dell desktop PC supports only 5.1 surround sound.
Nevertheless, if you do not want your Windows PC to reproduce the sound in multiple channels for any reason than you can quickly enable the mono sound mode in Windows 10. Here is how:
- Press the hotkey Win+I to launch the Windows settings. You can also open these settings by clicking on the Start and then by clicking on the cogwheel icon.
- On the settings window screen, click on the Ease of Access category.
- Select Audio category on the Ease of Access screen.
- Enable the setting labeled Turn on mono audio.
- Close the Windows 10 settings window.
You have now enabled the mono sound playback in your Windows 10 PC. Once you have enabled the mono sound, your PC will combine all the channels from an audio file being played on your PC into a single audio channel and then play that audio channel. Since all audio channels from a source are combined, you will not be able to listen to any differences in the sound of the audio channels of the original audio source file.
Enabling the mono sound is useful if you have a problem listening through both the channels or if the audio file itself is damaged and is playing only through the left or the right channel. Turning on the mono mode for audio will fix this problem.