On the screenshot or in the text I pasted in? The screenshot was just to
show that I was playing back a recording made in Audacity.
I thought you were referencing what you were saying to how I was recording
the signal. That is with ALSA.
As @ccaudle was saying âusing ALSAâ doesnât mean âusing an ALSA hardware deviceâ. By default, on systems with Pipewire installed, the âdefaultâ device used by apps that donât specify a device will be a Pipewire virtual device, not the actual ALSA hardware device. Thatâs why we need to see who is using the actual hardware devices and with what settings (a) when things work and (b) when they do not âŚ
You screenshot of Audacity shows Audacity playing back audio, not recording. My comment (prefaced with âas this screenshot showsâ) was referring specifically to the audacity setup you captured in the screenshot.
However the same principles apply to recording and playback, Audacity uses portaudio as the backend engine, and if you only show the host setting but not the playback and/or recording device setting you cannot be sure whether Audacity is using pipewire (via the pipewire-alsa virtual device) or not.
That is not the case for Ardour, when you select the ALSA backend in the Ardour Audio/MIDI setup dialog it is actually choosing direct access to the listed hardware devices, virtual devices are filtered out and not shown in the list.
Indeed, I should probably have asked for adevices.sh output while Audacity is recording, since that appears to be the âworkingâ scenario âŚ
Just let me know what I need to do and I will do it. I appreciate the
help! I havenât actually gotten this deep into the sound, but I love to
learn and I feel that this kind of learning is a blessing because it makes
me more able to solve my own problems as I learn. If I donât reply again
tonight though donât mind I get up for a 3:30 AM alarm to get ready for
work so my evenings are a little compacted.
Again, too, I have to say thanks again for this wonderful program! Itâs
fantastic what you have done! 
Dan Fontes
There I have to admit that I donât have the knowledge of these things that
you do Chris, but I welcome learning and appreciate any input you give.
Iâm not quite a newbie at this point, but I came out of 32 years of doing
nothing, last recording on a 4-track reel-to-reel deck with an Alesis HR-16
drum machine, an Ensoniq Mirage, a Radio Shack PZM mic and a few other
things into a completely new world. Itâs been a learning curve and Iâm
still learning but I think itâs great that I am. I feel thatâs what weâre
supposed to do as human beings.
Dan Fontes