Sound stuttering

I know altering sound files has been proven to help fix lag/stuttering in game with POE, but I'm having a unique problem I can't find help with.

I was having general gameplay performance issues/lag spikes, and the best fix for me was simply switching to Vulkan. This allows me to play smoothly at all times.
The problem is now my sound is stuttering instead. It happens mostly when there is a lot going on, like for example I noticed the sound stuttering was especially bad due to me importing a complex hideout, so I had to revert back to basic hideout.

Any way to fix this?

I've tried editing sound files, plugging my headset into 3.0 usb & disabling NVIDIA high definition audio.