First thing to check is Alsamixer. Get on that mfugging terminal and type in Alsamixer and then hit the F6 key to check if Mint was just being weird and muted anything. I had that happen to me a few times where it muted headphones or speakers on its own.

If that alone doesn't work, it can help to check if wireplumber and be sure this is enabled.

systemctl status --user wireplumber.service

If it isn't enabled, then run

systemctl --user start wireplumber.service

And if none of that worked, I did find Pavucontrol worked pretty amazingly for me. I just downloaded it and it just worked to just

sudo apt install pavucontrol

and then ran

pavucontrol &

Lemme know if any of this worked. Since you JUST got it, I don't think it's anything too crazy.