Terrible "ripping" hiss noise after only on edited track, not on source

Have you tried a program called Ocenaudio? It’s free, fast and stable and might do what you need. The people who frequent the forum are other users like us, rarely developers.

I am a one trick pony - not a tech guy. When I had the intermittent screeches I solved them by going into Audacity and Windows audio settings and making sure that the Sample rates match. I had a mix of 44100 and 48000 at the project track and device levels. I now have all at 44100 and have not had the problem. (I dont believe 44100 is a magic number - just that they need to match.) I also increased Buffer for cases when the screeching was a backup in the buffer.