[LAU] preventing pulseaudio from capturing a certain audio device

Hi, there! I've searched for this topic and the only thing I got were some obscure methods to keep some usb-devices from being occupied by pulseaudio... So, I thought, I'll ask the pros... Don't want to cause any fight between pro- and con-pulseaudio-users. I like pulseaudio very much on my laptop, but there are some circumstances, where I'd rather have more control about pulseaudios behaviour. I have a nice firewire device named ESI QuataFire 610, which is supported by FFADO _and_ ALSA. Problem is, when I plug in the QuataFire, pulseaudio grabs it. But this device is not made for desktop audio. After some seconds doing nothing, pulse sends it to sleep. Waking up, f.e. when the desktop makes some noise, or - whatever - some jabber-message comes in, does take some time, so, the event is really over, already, when a tail of a sample comes through the speakers... Another one: pulseaudio grabs the QuataFire with a certain samplerate I'm not supposed to change and I want to start jackd to make some recording in _another_ samperate, jackd won't start or the QuataFire gets mad or another unedifying thing happens. That sucks. Long story short: If I could tell pulseaudio not to care about the QuataFire (or any other certain device), everything would be easy to handle. Does pulseaudio has such a feature and how can I use it? (I've tried the terminal, but I haven't found it.) And if not - and some pulseaudio-dev is reading this - then put this feature on the wishlist, please! Greets! Mitsch