How does pulseaudio work when `pulseaudio` isn't installed?

Issues & Assistance KDE
3

from the arch wiki:

Arch Linux is a rolling release distribution. That means when new library versions are pushed to the repositories, the developers and Trusted Users rebuild all the packages in the repositories that need to be rebuilt against the libraries. For example, if two packages depend on the same library, upgrading only one package might also upgrade the library (as a dependency), which might then break the other package which depends on an older version of the library.

That is why partial upgrades are not supported. Do not use:

  • pacman -Sy package
  • pacman -Sy followed by pacman -S package.
  • pacman -Syuw (Note that pacman -Syuw does imply the same risks like pacman -Sy, as it will update the pacman sync database without installing the newer packages.)

Always upgrade (with pacman -Syu) before installing a package. Note that if pacman -Syu does not perform the upgrade because of an error, the end result is the same as running pacman -Sy. Therefore, the error must be resolved and the upgrade operation completed as soon as possible.

Furthermore, in my experience, not rebooting after an update sometimes leads to similar glitches. Would update have restarted pulseaudio (pipewire? kde plasma’s pulseaudio in another package?) or cleared up issues with on-disk libraries not matching loaded ones?