The sound over USB might be spotty and crappy, if ALSA is misconfigured, or because of pulseaudio or pipewire.

The ALSA driver for your USB DAC is likely to support 32bit 192kHz, because your USB DAC has 24bit 192kHz spec.
You may better test both 32bit and 24bit. That is why arateconf provides a utility to test which audio formats are supported by ALSA drivers.

Config was saved (but it was, perhaps, misconfigured). You can read it with command

cat ~/.asoundrc

Tests failed, perhaps.
Was it like this:

Saving config file...
Test: 'default' ... 'capture' ... Failed!
Test: 'default' ... 'capture' ... Failed!
Ok.

Try
DAC : 32bit 96kHz
HDA : 32bit 192kHz
HDMI: 16bit 48kHz

? DAC : 32bit 192kHz

What is in the spec? If 24bit, try 32bit and 24bit.

24bit usually means 32bit in this context.

EDIT:
If you managed to compile the fftrate (despite so little experience with Linux), you might be able to solve any problem.

HDMI is most probably 16bit 48kHz
HDA codec (motherboard) usually supports 32bit 192kHz (best quality) and some other formats.

If this you DAC spec _https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=57443#p57443
you have to try 32bit 192kHz
If it does not work, try 24bit or 16bit.

@stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn

If you are searching for intellectual entertainment, you may try
Alan Watts, The Individual & The World, Full Lecture
_https://youtu.be/Gr4Wo2OOJdY

EDIT:
The Brave Browser blocks ads & commercials in YouTube

To improve sound quality with ALSA, try to run it with apulse

apulse /usr/bin/brave-browser-stable

Indeed, it might be difficult to trust the Teachings, if "it is so difficult to understand the Teachings". And how to understand them without the trust in the ability to think?

Do you trust your ability to think?

"constant chatter screaming in your head" - It has nothing to do with thinking.

So that, you claim that senses are not truthful, and the ability to think cannot be trusted. Is this your road to ultimate reality?

Why do you trust your state of mind without "constant chatter screaming in your head"?
It might be a deceptive illusion produced by discursive mind to blow up your ego.

"Thoughts come to the mind" because there is an obsessive attachment to a certain state of mind.
Try to think without thoughts.

The statement is not only questionable, but also harmful in the sense that it was designed to undermine one's trust in his ability to think.

Detailed step-by-step instructions may help to learn and prevent frustration. They may help to build confidence and a sense of accomplishment during the learning process. Later, one might be able to compile without instructions.
For example, if you know how to compile wxMaxima with CMake, you may easily compile keypassXC without instructions.

$ dh_auto_build --list
autoconf             GNU Autoconf (configure)
perl_build           Perl Module::Build (Build.PL)
perl_makemaker       Perl ExtUtils::MakeMaker (Makefile.PL)
makefile             simple Makefile
python_distutils     Python Distutils (setup.py) [DEPRECATED]
cmake+makefile       CMake (CMakeLists.txt) combined with simple Makefile
cmake+ninja          CMake (CMakeLists.txt) combined with Ninja (build.ninja)
ant                  Ant (build.xml)
qmake                qmake (*.pro)
qmake_qt4            qmake for QT 4 (*.pro)
meson+ninja          Meson (meson.build) combined with Ninja (build.ninja)
ninja                Ninja (build.ninja)
kde+makefile         CMake with KDE 4 flags combined with simple Makefile [3rd party]
kde+ninja            CMake with KDE 4 flags combined with Ninja (build.ninja) [3rd party]
kf5+makefile         CMake with KDE Frameworks 5 flags combined with simple Makefile [3rd party]
kf5+ninja            CMake with KDE Frameworks 5 flags combined with Ninja (build.ninja) [3rd party]
lua                  Lua [3rd party]
pybuild              Python pybuild [3rd party]

Auto-selected: makefile

--list is a secret esoteric option

$ man debhelper | grep 'BUILD SYSTEM OPTIONS\|--list' -A4
BUILD SYSTEM OPTIONS
       The following command line options are supported by all of the dh_auto_* debhelper programs. These programs
       support a variety of build systems, and normally heuristically determine which to use, and how to use them.
       You can use these command line options to override the default behavior.  Typically these are passed to dh(1),
       which then passes them to all the dh_auto_* programs.
--
       --list, -l
           List all build systems supported by debhelper on this system. The list includes both default and third
           party build systems (marked as such). Also shows which build system would be automatically selected, or
           which one is manually specified with the --buildsystem option.

Detailed step-by-step instructions can help one to build own knowledge. By using detailed step-by-step instructions, learners can effectively build their knowledge and skills. It does not always work. The slaves of ALSA cannot build own knowledge, because they do not trust their senses and their ability to think. Though they can build another sort of knowledge. Knowledge is ignorance in this sense.

Password management is a must-have

Have you ever compiled anything?

The word "freedom" seems to be associated with drugs. It might be normal for "artists".