Why am I getting AUDIO DROPOUTS during playback?

[Todd KCCO]

I have a brand new imac fully loaded with 40 gigs of ram, imac hard drive is SSD, Media Cache is located on another SSD, working files are on another SSD. Premiere is the only program running.
As soon as I have two tracks of video playing with audio, the audio drops out within 30 seconds to a minute of playing the sequence. It's driving me NUTS! It's 1080 P video at 24fps. No effects, just straight video. What is going on here?

This computer should play this back no problem!
I've tried in on metal and open gl, and have even reduced quality to 1/4 quality and it still does it!
How can I fix this issue?

[Michael Grenadier]

You're not giving us enough information.  What codec is the video and what is codec is the audio and what is the sampling rate of the audio?  Have you tried generating proxies?  It can be a little tricky but can really make a difference in playback quality.  

[Todd KCCO]

Arri Cinema, 48000 Hz audio sample. I used proxies when I worked from my macbook pro, Since spending $6000 on this beast of a computer, I really was hoping it wasn't necessary to convert everything to proxies again. Due to the volume of video I edit, creating proxies is not a sufficient workflow.

There should be no reason this imac can't keep up with what I have in it.

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019)

Processor: 3.6 GHz Intel Core i9

Memory: 40 GB 2400 MHz DDR4

As I said, SSD internal just for programs, SSD for media Cache, SSD for working files.

[Michael Grenadier]

are you having any issues with video playback? seems odd that the only issue is with audio. It is possible (at least I understand it's possible) to generate proxy media when you're recording the video. Have you tried exploring the audio monitoring options in premiere preferences?

[Michael Grenadier]

also wondering if there are any issues with your sequence settings. You might explore the audio part of the sequence settings

[Todd KCCO]

Sometimes there are issues with the playback as well. Seems to stutter here and there, most of the time it is with the audio, I'll be playing through a section of video, (a lot of which is interviews) and within 15 seconds I lose sound for 5 seconds or so. I then have to back up the clip to hear that part again.. 30 seconds goes buy and it does it again.

What would I be looking to adjust in the settings?

[Ann Bens · Accepted solution]

UP the Latency in the Preferences/audio hardware.

[Todd KCCO]

currently it's set to 64, what should it be around?

[Ann Bens]

Trial and error.

[Todd KCCO]

I have it at 512, there doesn't seem to be any problems. Time will tell. Thanks for your help. much appreciated!

[default03m8tfvp6fal]

What else can be done to fix this issue?  I tried all Latency options available and still audio drops out every 5 seconds. 

[Michael Grenadier]

as I said earlier in this thread "You're not giving us enough information.  What codec is the video and what is codec is the audio and what is the sampling rate of the audio?  Have you tried generating proxies?  It can be a little tricky but can really make a difference in playback quality. "

[dionhawley]

Turns out it is the drive that is the issue. You need to run off SSD or NVME's. This fixed the issue for me without any need for proxies or setting changes. 

Specs: Multiple Macs and PCS all capable of cutting 4K HQ Footage with 2 CH Camera Audio.