SimpleAudioEngine playEffect performance issue, win32

Blast from the past! I’m still stuck with 2d-x 2.2 and only now found out about the lag associated with the playEffect function.

I’m really just an animator, so ‘porting’ to 3.x would be a nightmare.

Has anyone managed to get the new AudioEngine into 2.2? Is this a fool’s errand? Do I need to just look into fmod or something?

Thank you very much for your time.