CultofGraphene Is it possible the different apps are recording audio at different rates, and the hardware is semi-broken and works only at some rates?
If you are willing to factory reset again (thus losing your data again!), you might try:
- Factory reset, do not install anything or create any profiles, just immediately record with built-in app,
- If that fails, flash back to Google's OS; if you observe audio failures then, it probably is a hardware failure.
Those are just my best ideas, which aren't great, so you might want to see if others show up.