Sound problems, audio glitches on Kubuntu

cmus playing music. Audio glitches when turning on monitor after sleep. analog-stereo.

Firefox playing Youtube. Monitor speakers - hdmi-stereo. Sound glitches.

journalctl --user -f | grep -i pipewire // shows nothing

pw-top // to see the current quantum and latency in real-time.

the GPU wakes up / reinitializes

the audio device graph is reconfigured (even if you use analog speakers)

PipeWire briefly loses timing

you get buffer underrun = crackle / harsh glitch

Monitor wake → GPU power state change → audio clock hiccup → audible glitch

PipeWire is the real audio engine - talks to ALSA / hardware

PulseAudio is a compatibility layer

That’s why pactl info says: Server Name: PulseAudio (on PipeWire)

Meaning: programs think they talk to PulseAudio but actually talk to PipeWire

mkdir ~/.config/pipewire

cp /usr/share/pipewire/pipewire.conf ~/.config/pipewire/

nano ~/.config/pipewire/pipewire.conf

    ## Properties for the DSP configuration.

    #default.clock.rate          = 48000

    #default.clock.allowed-rates = [ 48000 ]

    #default.clock.quantum       = 1024

    #default.clock.min-quantum   = 32

    #default.clock.max-quantum   = 2048

    #default.clock.quantum-limit = 8192

    #default.clock.quantum-floor = 4

    #default.video.width         = 640

    #default.video.height        = 480

    #default.video.rate.num      = 25

    #default.video.rate.denom    = 1

    #

    #settings.check-quantum      = false

    #settings.check-rate         = false

Uncomment and change:

    default.clock.rate = 48000

    default.clock.quantum = 2048

    default.clock.max-quantum = 4096

sudo apt remove pulseaudio

rm -rf ~/.config/pulse

systemctl --user restart pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber

systemctl --user status pipewire-pulse.service

systemctl --user status pipewire.service wireplumber.service

wpctl status

aplay -l

pactl info

pactl list short sinks

pactl list modules