Re: [linux-audio-user] switching sound cards on the fly?

Hi, I realize this is probably better directed toward some list like alsa-user but since I'm not a member let me try here. The machine here in the living room has two sound cards - one internal and an external USB device that pumps out optical into my home theater equipment. The internal card is the default Alsa device and anytime I want to use the external device I have to make a Gnome launcher to specifically point the audio to hw:1,0. My question is whether Alsa has a user level mechanism to allow me in a terminal, on the fly, to switch which card Gnome considers my default sound card? I was wondering about flipping a bit somewhere and directing Internet radio in my browser to the stereo instead of the wimpy PC speaker we have on my wife's box.