Pulse has excellent integration with jackd:

  /usr/lib/pulse-11.1/modules/module-jack-sink.so

  /usr/lib/pulse-11.1/modules/module-jack-source.so

  /usr/lib/pulse-11.1/modules/module-jackdbus-detect.so

I can use pavucontrol with ease to redirect an application's audio output (e.g. chromium's) to the jack sink.

It's a painful process to accomplish the same thing without using pulseaudio, because you're going to have to mess with ALSA configuration files- and believe me, that's no fun at all.