Wake up lag in Bluetooth audio path

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I've replicated the ESP32 Web Radio project by MrBuddyCasino using an ESP32 Dev Board and Adafruit MAX98357A Breakout #3006 such that continuous music streamed from my Android phone to ESP_SPEAKER sounds fine.

My issue, however, is that short, intermittent sound clips from the phone are initially somewhat truncated e.g. "Welcome to Android" might be heard "come to Android." The same audio thru the phone's native speaker is not truncated.

So, judging wake up lag to be at fault, I might prime the Bluetooth audio path by sending brief silence before each sound clip. This seems kludgy though and I'm hoping for deeper understanding and perhaps a better solution. Any thoughts?

Thanks!