Surely Fahrenheit as the op is from "murica".
The difference in temperature between the ends may be due to the wider copper trace at the "cool" end that dissipated more thermal energy than the thin trace at the "hot" end. Although the difference is quite high. Possibly the IR theermometer wasn't correctly aligned and measured the temperature of the PCB partly?
Anyway, 94 °C is not yet to be worried about.
Just a note on the side: Going from 53 V to 27 V via a linear regulator is not the best design decision. No wonder R1 gets hot.
The 23 V reading 27 V is imho not an issue either as this is the source of other regulated voltages and as these read o.k., as you state, power seems to be good. The issue with the missing sound is located elsewhere I would think.