running pianoteq9 headless on boot, ubuntu 24.04 LTS

I've been running PT 6/7/8 on a dedicated Intel NUC for years without problems. When PT 9 came out I decided to put together a new system: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS running on a Beelink miniS.  Accessing it via xrdp or ssh.

I thought I could start up PT9 on boot using a crontab with an @reboot (cmd).  That does indeed startup PT9, as I can see from top (via ssh session).  However there is no sound.  If I kill the running PT9 process, then re-start it using a ssh'ed bash shell, PT9 will reload and run fine.

I know this is an old topic!  I added a "sleep 60 &&" to the PT9 command in the crontab, but that didn't work.  Nor did adding PT9 as a startup task from a remote desktop window.

Another issue is that, if I open a remote desktop and launch PT9 with graphic display (not headless) the sound output on the piano is unusable as there is a lot of reverb and stutter.  Pipewire problem?  PT9 is configured to use Pipewire default device, which is my same USB DAC that ran fine on my previous, older Ubuntu, where it was listed as an ALSA device with no modifications.  On the new 24.04 ubuntu, my ALSA device can't be selected as it's already opened (by pipewire?).

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!