For those that are having issues with missing sound icons, I would recommend branching off and starting a new thread dedicated to this issue to get the proper help and support.
When I created this post it was a comparison between Pulse and Pipewire, not troubleshooting a specific issue.
That’s why you don’t have a sound icon. Pamac removed all packages that depend on pulseaudio. You said yes to that transaction. The correct way would have been just to install manjaro-pipewire, which would replace pulseaudio without removing all packages that depend on it.
Also, it is NEVER necessary to run pamac with sudo. Pamac asks to escalate its own permissions when needed.
one more reason to use pipewire is HD bluethooth codecs. though stock pulse-audio supposedly supports HD codecs from v15, the additional packaging requirements has made arch drop HD support. (the old pulseaudio-modules-bt doesnot work with PA v15 anymore)
stock pipewire supports HD codecs, and some, than PA v15