Studio Display audio cutout after a few seconds

- m1 max macbook pro, 16'' - macOS 12.6.7 - Studio Display Version 15.5 Couple days ago, suddenly have this issue, where audio will stop playing for a few seconds. - Audition either continues playing without sound, or freeze (in which case had to force quit coreaudiod to unfreeze it). Other applications either buffers as though bad network, or plays without sound. afplay exits immediately when no sound. - Switching back to built-in speaker and then to studio display seems to reset and audio will play again for a few seconds - Power-cycling the studio display does not help Unfortunately I cannot restart my mac due to important process running. Any other ideas to troubleshoot the problem?