That’s strange - it must be something system related.
I have used Manjaro for years - on a multitude different systems - and I have never had any issues with sound or graphics. The past 18 months I have been using an Nvidia Quadro P2000 and sound is no issue through the HDMI connected monitors.
Going out on a limb, but I do recall when I first installed Manjaro (about 4 months ago) that I did not have sound either. Turned out the default sound options were set for “Analog Stereo” via 3.5mm jack, whereas my speakers were connected via S/PDIF (optical).
So my suggestion would be to make sure your sound devices/options are setup correctly for your hardware.
And the only way a change like this might make sense is if the kernel identified your sound hardware differently. For example, in my case, my audio device is currently being detected under Starship/Matisse HD Audio (AMD Zen2 code names) and I kind of anticipate a day when a new kernel will identify the sound device as Vermeer/Warhol HD Audio (AMD Zen3 code names). And if/when it does, I figure I’ll loose sound until I reapply the “optical output” configuration for it.
Thank you for your post. I’d like to try this, but what I see in my Audio settings is different than what I see in your screenshot. I think I can’t choose the output type.
Maybe I should add what my problem looks like exactly. The volume icon in the system tray gets grayed out. I primarily use my monitor speakers, through HDMI.
EDIT Perhaps I should also repeat that this isn’t too big of an issue for me yet. I only need to choose the kernel in the GRUB menu once after every update. But I will be in a pickle when 5.10 is no longer supported.