Double_H, I mostly use the headphones for audio too. I can see how your chosen method will work well for you. There is a way to get alsamixer to remember the settings after reboot so it doesn't need to be open in terminal, a template, I remember looking at it in the past but it seemed too complex for me to try to do it at the time, and I could not get alsamixer to remember the settings on reboot, so I would use alsamixer with it open in terminal on that computer the same as you do. I mention it just in case at a future time you decided this may be of interest to look in to.
Edit, it is just a thought/idea -
When I was making app in the past, I done a desktop icon and used this to make the terminal "silent" (not visible on the desktop) , clicking the icon ran the app gui, but didn't display the terminal, before I made the icon I typed commands in to the terminal and both the terminal and the app gui displayed on the desktop.
So I know that can be done, my idea is that I think it could be possible to somehow have a script with the alsamixer settings of your choice in it, and an icon on the desktop, menu or panel.
When the icon is clicked it will run alsamixer with the chosen settings, and the terminal will not be visible on the desktop, it will still be running in the terminal of course just it is not visible on the screen.
In such a case then to edit the alsamixer settings the script could be altered.
I don't know the workings of alsamixer, but if someone did, then this can be possible to create.
The default sound settings set the app to run on boot.
Or better to have a basic gui to select a users sound scheme by name or number, headphones, speakers, or for specific music genre, or other types of audio schemes they have saved in to the script.
Meaning that users would not need to know/or feel comfortable to use the terminal, or to edit scripts, to make use of the app for script controlling of alsamixer.
Edit, it is just a thought/idea -
When I was making app in the past, I done a desktop icon and used this to make the terminal "silent" (not visible on the desktop) , clicking the icon ran the app gui, but didn't display the terminal, before I made the icon I typed commands in to the terminal and both the terminal and the app gui displayed on the desktop.
So I know that can be done, my idea is that I think it could be possible to somehow have a script with the alsamixer settings of your choice in it, and an icon on the desktop, menu or panel.
When the icon is clicked it will run alsamixer with the chosen settings, and the terminal will not be visible on the desktop, it will still be running in the terminal of course just it is not visible on the screen.
In such a case then to edit the alsamixer settings the script could be altered.
I don't know the workings of alsamixer, but if someone did, then this can be possible to create.
The default sound settings set the app to run on boot.
Or better to have a basic gui to select a users sound scheme by name or number, headphones, speakers, or for specific music genre, or other types of audio schemes they have saved in to the script.
Meaning that users would not need to know/or feel comfortable to use the terminal, or to edit scripts, to make use of the app for script controlling of alsamixer.