Audio quality from wired headset bad: background crackling

Hello all,

I have selected in gnome audio settings the line output to wired audio headset: Starship/Matisse HD audio controller.

There is low background noise, which is not present in all other speaker audio outputs.

Additionally I have a regression in “test audio” of gnome audio settings: line output doesn’t recognize the stereo sink and says to “select a speaker” without speakers displayed.

this is my inxi:

 inxi -Axx                                                                                                        ✔    3.13.11 

Audio:
  Device-1: NVIDIA AD102 High Definition Audio vendor: ZOTAC
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 16
    bus-ID: 0c:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:22ba
  Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Starship/Matisse HD Audio
    vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 16 GT/s
    lanes: 16 bus-ID: 0e:00.4 chip-ID: 1022:1487
  Device-3: Logitech Webcam C930e driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo type: USB
    rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 5-3.1:4 chip-ID: 046d:0843
  API: ALSA v: k6.18.8-1-MANJARO status: kernel-api with: aoss
    type: oss-emulator
  Server-1: sndiod v: N/A status: off
  Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.22 status: off
  Server-3: PipeWire v: 1.4.10 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse
    status: active 2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin