PulseAudio Sound Control

Audio CLI Linux PulseAudio

I run the `pactl` command to change the profile for my Blue Tooth card. Here are the commands I use to list the available cards, list the cards with more details, show the active profiles, and change the profile for the Blue Tooth card. 

$ man pactl |head -n5

pactl(1)

NAME
      pactl - Control a running PulseAudio sound server

It seems that setting the following in the PulseAudio config file does not work on my system (Manjaro):

# /etc/pulse/default.pa
# https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/462670/set-default-profile-for-pulseaudio
.ifexists bluez_card.FC_A8_9A_C6_87_BD
pactl set-card-profile bluez_card.FC_A8_9A_C6_87_BD a2dp_sink
.endif

So, I list the available cards:

$ pactl list short cards

0  alsa_card.pci-0000_01_00.1      module-alsa-card.c
1  alsa_card.usb-webcamvendor_Nexi module-alsa-card.c
2  alsa_card.pci-0000_00_1f.3      module-alsa-card.c
4  bluez_card.FC_A8_9A_C6_87_BD    module-bluez5-device.c

List cards with more details:

$ pactl list cards

Card #4

Name: bluez_card.FC_A8_9A_C6_87_BD
Driver: module-bluez5-device.c
Owner Module: 30

Properties:
  device.description = "JBL Charge 3"
  device.string = "FC:A8:9A:C6:87:BD"
  device.api = "bluez"
  device.class = "sound"
  device.bus = "bluetooth"
  device.form_factor = "speaker"
  bluez.path = "/org/bluez/hci0/dev_FC_A8_9A_C6_87_BD"
  bluez.class = "0x240414"
  bluez.alias = "JBL Charge 3"
  device.icon_name = "audio-speakers-bluetooth"
  bluetooth.codec = "sbc"

Profiles:
  a2dp_sink: High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink) (sinks: 1, sources: 0, priority: 40, available: yes)
  handsfree_head_unit: Handsfree Head Unit (HFP) (sinks: 1, sources: 1, priority: 30, available: yes)
  off: Off (sinks: 0, sources: 0, priority: 0, available: yes)

Active Profile: handsfree_head_unit

Ports:
  speaker-output: Speaker (type: Speaker, priority: 0, latency offset: 0 usec, available)
    Part of profile(s): a2dp_sink, handsfree_head_unit
  speaker-input: Bluetooth Input (type: Bluetooth, priority: 0, latency offset: 0 usec, availability unknown)
    Part of profile(s): handsfree_head_unit

Show active profiles:

$ pactl list cards | grep 'Active Profile'

Active Profile: output:hdmi-stereo
Active Profile: input:mono-fallback
Active Profile: off
Active Profile: handsfree_head_unit

Change the profile for the Blue Tooth card:

$ pactl set-card-profile bluez_card.FC_A8_9A_C6_87_BD a2dp_sink

Show active profile again, notice the new profile:

$ pactl list cards | grep 'Active Profile'

Active Profile: output:hdmi-stereo
Active Profile: input:mono-fallback
Active Profile: off
Active Profile: a2dp_sink