Music app skips when playing local ALAC files

Hi all,

Music app on a Mac (MacPro 2019, 16-Core Xeon, 192GB of RAM) skips and makes kinda CD-player like short pauses when playing my local library on a NAS. The NAS runs on a 1GB wired network, no issues there, the speeds are consistent when copying data. Tried disabling IPv6 - same issue, tried restarting router, Mac, NAS - same issue. Never happened with a previous macOS version before upgrading to 26.

It's very annoying as it ruins my enjoyment :) My all music is in ALAC/.m4a format, all ripped from actual CDs, not using streaming.

Any help will be appreciated