i've let this slide for years because i really don't want to fix it. i don't want all the beeps. but i am getting too curious to know what setting is making the bell character not produce any sound. using pavucontrol i have checked that System Sounds is a 96% in pavucontrol's Playback tab. when i output the alarm character i get no sound.
Code:
echo $'\a'
this is under Xubuntu 18.04 upgraded on Friday and the terminal program is xfce4-terminal.