I don't use Pulseaudio, so I only know it from "I've heard..." and that's all been negative, that it doesn't work or is annoying. For Pipewire, I've only actually heard good things. Maybe I'm talking to a specific set of people, but I still might try it.
PA mostly works, nowadays. It still spontaneously gets muted, once in a long while, but if I pop up enough different volume controls, I have always found a button to unmute it.
