Default audio quality is very subpar and, hoping for improvements, followed a post called “[Solved] Terrible sound in linux, much better in windows” in the archived forums (Can’t seem to post the direct link because of forum permission issues).
Funnily, the volume levels are very low after following the instructions. The volume is sorta better by 5% when I use headsets. The Pulse Audio GUI panel is apparently disconnected from the server.
A user in that discussion had the same problem as you
pavucontrol only says “Establishing connection to PulseAudio. Please wait…”
If the file /etc/pulse/daemon.conf is configured incorrectly then PulseAudio server fails to start. pavucontrol cannot establish a connection to PulseAudio because it has failed to start
The error message posted confirms that something is mis-configured in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf at line 1
but aside from fixing any error, many of the suggested settings are now no longer necessary or have been found to be too excessive for many users
the volume levels are very low after following the instructions
That is probably due to the suggested ALSA configuration - /etc/asound.conf
The logic for adding this was valid at that time
This piece of code I had you put in your asound.conf bypasses dmix for pulseaudio increasing sound quality by a lot
But Manjaro now uses a different ALSA configuration that does not rely on either dmix or plug ALSA plugins
I suggest you revert system to default configuration and remove asound.conf:
sudo rm /etc/asound.conf
then reinstall PulseAudio to reset configuration to default