I installed Zorin 18.1. Love it. Have a few problems. Main problem was the sound. Looked all over for help. I did alsamixer to check if I had a sound card, checked. Made sure nothing was muted, checked. I downloaded Pulse Audio. I did need this. I did a force reload of alsa with "sudo alsa force-reload" from a website that I found. This all did nothing. My OS wasn't even finding the speakers. So I rechecked my USB plug. Plugged in, but I switched the ports. Then OS found the speakers, still no sound. Then I thought maybe, just maybe it is the speakers. Nobody is talking about speakers being the issue. I checked my speaker brand website. I had an Adesso Soundbar. Sure enough. The speakers were not supported for Linux. That is the answer. After a week of troubleshooting. I typed in Linux supported speakers, or something like that. Amazon popped up with speakers. XKX brand I believe. Had a few to choose from. Speaker supports every OS including Linux. I ordered them. I plugged in these speakers. All I needed to do was to choose the right one for USB in the Sound in Settings. I had sound. The speakers might be the issue.
I don't think everyone with sound issues uses a Soundbar. Kudos to you for your research. You need to remember that most computer hardware is designed for that other OS. We owe a lot to volunteers who over many years have had to reverse engineer to get hardware working with the Linux kernel.
Awsome Trouble shooting!!! Well done. I feel this one is strong in the (LINUX) Force.... 
Sound issues on Linux are often a nightmare to solve. Your logical trouble shooting that pointed you to the hardware is refreshing.
I assume by that comment, you are referring to the original speakers being incompatible.
Yes, I found the speakers on the manufacture website. And the OS listed was for Windows 10 Mac OS and Android I believe. But no Linux. Now that being said. I was having trouble of the system not even finding the speakers themselves. So I changed the USB port to another. Then the speakers showed up. Then I discovered the speakers that I used with Windows 10/11 were not supported for Linux.