ALSA Underrun Recovery

[net147]

I am using Reaper 5.94 with RME Babyface Pro and the following settings.

Audio system: ALSA
Input channels: 12
Output channels: 2
Sample rate: 48000
Blocksize: 16
Bit depth: 24
Periods: 2
RT priority: 40
Auto-suspend PulseAudio: checked
Disable power management if supported: checked

If I open a project with a couple of tracks (ReaSynth and Helm) and press Play the current position indicator progresses at a rate of about 0.001 or 0.002 every second for a long time before playing back normally. During this time I hear 2 clicks per second with the channel meters going up and down for each click. If I press Stop, click on the audio statistics bar at the top right of the window, press OK and press Play it returns to normal immediately.

Could the ALSA handling be improved so that current position doesn't progress at a snails pace with 2 clicks noises per second and take a long time to recover when there is underrun?

Thanks.