Realtek ALC294 Recording problem, all sound output piped through input

I have encountered an issue with Ubuntu 21.04 where any audio output is piped to the mic in incorrectly. This is happening by default when using the 3.5 aux in & out ports. This would be great if I wanted a loopback but I don't. This fundamentally breaks my workflow and would like to find a resolution, but no idea what else to try.

This seems to happens on both the default pulseaudio server & force switching to pipewire

Microphone is a vmoda boom pro
PC is a lenovo thinkcentre m910q tiny which has:
 - 1x mic jack
 - 1x combo headphone/mic jack
 - running on the realtek alc294
I have tested this by recording with parec with the physical microphone switch off and on, with a youtube video playing in the background. I have also done the same test with microphone detached from headphones and it still is piped through.
All audio is recorded, which to me seems to confirm there is an issue/bug somewhere in the audio stack.

I have only found one other example of this happening, where that was on a different distro (manjaro) & reporter said to use usb, where I am using aux/ 3.5mm plugs. However, that thread just stopped with no resolution: https://forum.manjaro.org/t/all-the-sound-is-going-through-my-microphone/41760/10

I have attempted the tests in that thread, and I can confirm that there is some sort of software cross talk happening here.

I have also attempted both recommendation for hdajackretask, and setting custom quirks in alsa-base.conf in this thread: https://superuser.com/questions/1312970/headset-microphone-not-detected-by-pulse-und-alsa

hdajackretask was tried to get the combo headphone/mic jack to work, but did not find any setting to get that to work. Using two separate plugs, headphones & microphone do work, so not an issue with the pin setup.

I tried the specific quirk for this codec, alc294-lenovo-mic, but that did not work either.

Have tried:

options snd-hda-intel model=alc294-lenovo-mic
options snd-hda-intel model=headset-mic
options snd-hda-intel model=dell-headset-multi
In all variations, but this does not solve the issue of all of my audio is getting sent through the input for no good reason.

I am not sure how else to debug at this point and looking for any insight possible.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 21.04
Package: alsa-base 1.0.25+dfsg-0ubuntu7
Uname: Linux 5.11.0-051100rc7-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu61
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Mon Mar 29 20:41:36 2021
InstallationDate: Installed on 2021-02-05 (52 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 21.04 "Hirsute Hippo" - Alpha amd64 (20210123)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: alsa-driver
Symptom: audio
Symptom_AlsaRecordingTest: ALSA recording test through plughw:PCH successful
Symptom_Card: Built-in Audio - HDA Intel PCH
Symptom_Jack: Pink Mic, Front
Symptom_PulseAudioRecordingTest: PulseAudio recording test through plughw:PCH successful
Symptom_Type: None of the above
Title: [10MV000MUS, Realtek ALC294, Pink Mic, Front] Recording problem
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 09/18/2018
dmi.bios.release: 1.41
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: M1AKT3BA
dmi.board.name: 310B
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: SDK0J40697 WIN 3305150443148
dmi.chassis.type: 35
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: None
dmi.ec.firmware.release: 1.18
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvrM1AKT3BA:bd09/18/2018:br1.41:efr1.18:svnLENOVO:pn10MV000MUS:pvrThinkCentreM910q:rvnLENOVO:rn310B:rvrSDK0J40697WIN3305150443148:cvnLENOVO:ct35:cvrNone:
dmi.product.family: ThinkCentre M910q
dmi.product.name: 10MV000MUS
dmi.product.sku: LENOVO_MT_10MV_BU_Think_FM_ThinkCentre M910q
dmi.product.version: ThinkCentre M910q
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO
mtime.conffile..etc.modprobe.d.alsa-base.conf: 2021-03-29T17:12:38.893779