Wheel bearing bad off the shelf?

If you swap the front tires to the back,Or at least side-for-side, at least you could rule the tires out. I usually wait to change the wheel bearings until they sound like helicopters.Then there is no confusing things,because like, it's really loud,lol.And then it's not.

As you know, whirring by itself is not necessarily indicative of wheel bearings. But the loading, and unloading, as you describe, exacerbating,or alleviating, the noise is. So I, like you,would be similarly confused.
But as you also know,there is a CV joint at the wheel, and while they don't usually whir, I guess there could be a first time.
I've had to spend 15 to 20 minutes now and again cleaning stones out of sipes. As well,.......with pretty good results.
In order for an alignment to create that much noise the car would be nearly undriveable.
Some tire treads are just plain noisy, that way.