if pulse doesnt work properly, replace it with pipewire: pamac install manjaro-pipewire wireplumber
it will give you pulse dependency issues, so remove them first, then run the command again, reboot
Many thanks for weighing in so quickly, and your solution worked–pipewire replacing pulse gives sound and it’s persistent upon reboot, updating, etc. (successful switch to headphones as well)
Can’t figure out why current pulse worked with Linux Mint xfce, but not with Manjaro. But pulse has always given me fits with earlier Linux/kernel and I frequently had to do alsa-commands/xbindkeys.