I got interesting news from the fedora accessibility room today! this concerns blind and visually impaired #linux users exclusively, however: For a bit of time, specifically pipewire >=1.4, one can start pipewire as root. That includes the regular daemon and the alsa layer, because jack emulation...
I also have a DAC connected via USB to my laptop but I have never experienced this. Which distro are you on?
Artix, basically Arch. Replaced Pulseaudio with Pipewire as user service. Same issue with PA tho.