Since the release of the expansion, I've been dealing with an issue where I would lose all audio for around 5 seconds occasionally when I switched jobs, called a mount, or opened the map. Before the release of the expansion, I would sometimes have a delay changing jobs or for the graphics for my mount displaying, but this was purely cosmetic and did not cause any audio issues. I had assumed this was an issue on SE's end for the longest time, but since I was losing audio, it occurred to me that it might actually have been on my end all along. I have since solved the issue. While it used to occur once every 1-2 hours, I have since played 12 hours without it occurring once.

The game has always been installed on my SSD, however, the My Documents folder has been located on an HDD. When doing the above-mentioned activities, it appears FFXIV accesses its respective folder in My Documents, and the delay was caused by the slow drive. It is strange to me that a delay in accessing these files would cause the audio to drop entirely. I moved My Documents to my SSD, and the issue has never recurred.

Another issue I've seen since the expansion is that sometimes FFXIV will drop connection with my controller for a split second, during which the audio stutters. It seems the new audio engine is very fragile and prone to dropping out for the slightest reasons. For the record, I've tried multiple USB ports and none of my other USB devices ever have issues, nor have I had an issue with the controller outside of FFXIV after 6.0.

In addition to all of this, I've been having the normal audio popping as well, made worse since 6.01. Nothing I try on my end has any effect on it. I'm using an Intel Core i7 920.