Sound over Thunderbolt randomly becomes distorted

The profile for the dock is initially set to Digital stereo (S/PDIF) output
and audio changes when profile is switched to Analog Stereo Output

But what has me really puzzled is that there does not appear to be any digital S/PDIF connection available on this device

There only appears to be one analog audio jack for headphones, headset or microphone

And online data scans for this device only show an analog output (PCM) and microphone input

Lenovo ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 Dock USB Audio

Card sysdefault:2 'USB'/'Lenovo ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 Dock USB at usb-0000:08:00.0-2.1.1.2, full speed'
  Mixer name	: 'USB Mixer'
  Components	: 'USB17ef:3083'
  Controls      : 6
  Simple ctrls  : 3
Simple mixer control 'PCM',0
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [on]
Simple mixer control 'Mic',0
  Capabilities: cvolume cvolume-joined cswitch cswitch-joined
  Capture channels: Mono
  Limits: Capture 0 - 30
  Mono: Capture 30 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Auto Gain Control',0
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [off]

There are no controls for IEC958 digital audio, so it appears that this dock does not support digital audio over the HDMI or Displayport sockets

If you are using headphones or speakers plugged in to the audio jack you should probably be using the profile Analog Stereo Output

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