Shell, as in Gnome-Shell? No surprises there if so.<p>That said, at its core Pulseaudio depends on ALSA for the hardware handling.<p>Frankly the only useful thing Pulseaudio does it handle inputs and outputs when dealing with multiple sound devices. But then so does JACK.<p>Everything else, from volume control (hello hearing damage with default settings) to bit rate mangling, is massively superfluous.