Shortcut to switch between Analog Stereo output & HDMI audio output

Solution 1:

With pulseaudio we are able to select the output sink from the command line:

pacmd set-default-sink "SINKNAME"

This command can be used in a launcher, script or even assigned to a keyboard shortcut for fast switching between different sinks. Please replace "SINKNAME" by the name or number of your desired sink. A list of known sinks with their associated numbers and names is given by the command:

pacmd list-sinks

Note: Changing the output sink through the command line interface can only take effect if stream target device reading is disabled. This can be done by editing the corresponing line in /etc/pulse/default.pa to:

load-module module-stream-restore restore_device=false

Alternatively we could run pulseaudio to simultaneously output sound to the internal audio device, and to the hdmi-device by running paprefs with the option to add a virtual output device:

Solution 2:

I found this very annoying myself and wrote a script to toggle the output:

#!/bin/bash

CURRENT_PROFILE=$(pacmd list-cards | grep "active profile" | cut -d ' ' -f 3-)

if [ "$CURRENT_PROFILE" = "<output:hdmi-stereo+input:analog-stereo>" ] ; then
  pacmd set-card-profile 0 "output:analog-stereo+input:analog-stereo"
else 
  pacmd set-card-profile 0 "output:hdmi-stereo+input:analog-stereo"        
fi

And then bound an unused key on my keyboard to execute it (see this).