* Kjetil Matheussen <k.s.matheussen(a)gmail.com> [2015-06-14 09:03]:
  Peter P:
  Hi list,
 I am wondering how I could make a VU meter automatically receive all
 audio that is sent to specific jack output ports by various
 applications, also from those that I will start later on a given day.
 thank you for all ideas!
 
 Hi,
 jack_capture is able to do exactly what you ask for.
 jack_capture is mainly made for recording audio,
 but to avoid recording anything, just run it in "timemachine"
 mode:
 $ jack_capture --meterbridge --timemachine --port system:playback_1 --port
 system:playback_2
 (make sure "meterbridge" is installed) 
Thanks Kjetil,
I found out that meterbridge can connect to the system:playback_N ports
itself, but running it via jack_capture gives me persistent connections.
Thanks, this is great and works fine for me as
jack_capture --meterbridge --meterbridge-type dpm --timemachine --port system:playback_1
--port system:playback_2 /dev/null