Just in case anyone runs into something similar in the future I'm not 
entirely certain what fixed this as I broke a troubleshooting rule and 
did more than one thing before testing, but I
1) edited /etc/pulse/default.pa to add the lines
load-module module-echo-cancel use_master_format=1 aec_method=webrtc 
aec_args="analog_gain_control=0 digital_gain_control=1" 
source_name=echoCancel_source sink_name=echoCancel_sink
set-default-source echoCancel_source
set-default-sink echoCancel_sink
2) issued the command, "systemctl --user restart pulseaudio.service"

Actually, it might be the second. I just tried commenting out those echo 
filter lines and reloaded pulse audio again and I'm still not getting 
that weird echo or whatever it was on the high end.

That said, this only seems to persist until I restart.

Actually, I just did a restart and now I'm getting clean audio without 
needing to restart the pulse audio service...

Yeah. Well. Apparently the answer if you have this issue is to poke 
various files without success, then add the echo filter to the pulse 
audio default.pa file, reload the pulse audio service, comment out your 
changes, and then restart. :)  Slightly more complicated than, "Have you 
tried turning it off and then on again?" But I'll take it.

I was going to comment that I'd worked out how to create a launcher that 
would run a shell script that issued the pulse audio service restart 
command, but since it looks like I don't need that now I guess I won't. :)


On 7/11/21 5:14 PM, Steven via PLUG-discuss wrote:
> So I recently bit the bullet and replaced my 2013 laptop with a new 
> one (a Dell Inspiron 15 3505 with a Ryzen 3700U). In nearly every way 
> it has been a massive improvement over the old laptop (four cpu cores, 
> 16 GB of ram, and solid state drives meant installing the OS and 
> booting are faster than I have been used to). That said, initially I'd 
> installed the latest Ubuntu LTS (20.04) only to discover that neither 
> the AMD nor Cirrus Logic sound were recognized. Going into the sound 
> settings the output device was set to "Dummy Output." I did some 
> searching, found this was apparently a not uncommon occurrence even if 
> I'd not heard of it before, but none of the solutions that were 
> suggested worked.
>
> So, I updated the install to 21.04 at which point Ubuntu was willing 
> to recognize that there was an HD Audio Controller present and I now 
> get sound. Only there's a slight distortion in it that I'm not quite 
> sure how to describe. A sort of ringing/crackle/echo on the high 
> pitched sounds. Lowering the volume seems to help slightly but it's 
> still present, and this is whether I'm using the built in speakers or 
> headphones. I'm charging up a pair of bluetooth headphones I have to 
> see if it's present there or if that dodges around the issue. Anyway, 
> does anyone have suggestions on what might be wrong? I've done more 
> searches but it seems the pages I'm finding are nearly all people 
> talking about not getting any sound. I'm inclined to think it might be 
> a driver issue seeing as how I'm not noticing the same distortion if I 
> boot into Windows.
>
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