Multitrack playback creates random stereo placement/imaging issue?

Hi! New to Audition and audio in general, so please forgive the noobishness...

I'm noticing that during playback of my audio clips in Multitrack (in my headphones and through speakers) the "placement" of stereo sound starts to change in-between cuts of the audio and from one audio clip to the next (in the same track, or to another track).

When I pause playback and start again, it's fine for a time (random) but upon encountering cuts between clips, the "imaging" (for lack of better term) becomes incorrect. It's also noticeable when I apply a plugin to a track, say, pitch shifter or EQ.

If I highlight multiple clips and "mixdown session to new file --> selected clips", I can listen (and apply FX) to the clips with no stereo placement weirdness in the waveform window. I can save the combined clips out to a single .wav file and re-import to the multitrack session, and the stereo weirdness begins again as I playback the newly combined audio clip -- so I'm assuming it's a multi-track playback/rendering issue?

Rendering or exporting out of the multitrack session to .wav randomly commits this "placement/imaging" issue when down-mixed or exported to .wav.

Anyone else having these issues? I've tried fussing about with the various preference settings, changing from analog to optical outputs, buffer settings, etc. but to no avail.

Thanks for any and all help!