To return to the OP's problem: is the pulseaudio daemon actually running?
Well, I've never done anything specific to enable the daemon, but there is something running!
# ps auxw | grep pulse paul 23798 0.0 0.0 196280 5880 ? Il 11Mar17 0:08.28 /usr/pkg/bin/pulseaudio --start --log-target=syslog # +------------------+--------------------------+------------------------+ | Paul Goyette | PGP Key fingerprint: | E-mail addresses: | | (Retired) | FA29 0E3B 35AF E8AE 6651 | paul at whooppee.com | | Kernel Developer | 0786 F758 55DE 53BA 7731 | pgoyette at netbsd.org | +------------------+--------------------------+------------------------+