New subject: Pulseaudio with Jack How-To [was no audio through headphone jack]

7 Jun 2020

Hiya,

My use case is this: I have a desktop with Arch, I play music on it
using the desktop audio port at the back during the day, and at night
I use headphones connected to a tiny USB sound card. This works with
pulseaudio, but despite being a simple scenario pulseaudio is a bit
flaky and sometimes hangs. So I went looking for an alternative
solution. I know that Jack is for professional audio, not some basic
home use, however I gave it a try.

I used the instructions in the Arch and Jack wikis. I am using jack2
with Cadence and set up a bridge for pulseaudio to Jack. Some of
players that I use have Jack outputs so I use it on them, example,
Vlc, Audacious, Mixxx. For Firefox and other players without a Jack
output I use the pulseaudio bridge. I have been using this for a day
only and so far I am happy, it seems more reliable than pulseaudio. I
do have to stop the jack server and the pulse audio bridge before
suspending the computer, but that is fine with me (incidentally this
suspending seems to trigger pulseaudio flakiness when not using jack).
The sound quality seems better with Jack – not really surprising as it
is professional audio!

There is something I have not figured out. If I plug headphones on the
3.5 mm headphone port in the front of the desktop, the sound out of
the back to the speakers stops, as normal in pulseaudio, however I
don't get any sound on the headphones. I could not find in Cadence any
port specific for the headphones. Another guy reported the same a few
days ago on the Arch forum so it is not just me. Is there a solution
for this?