i dont think switching from windows audio to asio, or any other driver type, would help in this case. Sounds more like hardware performance issue, or the audio interface itself is starting to fail.
I know exactly what you mean, but I tested out 3 OBS-Likes Softwares and Audacity to make sure.
All 3 OBS-Like Softwares had the same exact drops (audio suddenly drops or putters out for like 2-10ms) at intervals.
Audacity was completely clean (even if I on purpose set the wrong settings to cause drifting) and it held the audio channels.
If I disconnect and reconnect my XLR Cable with the Interface, the audio works well in OBS, until the next time I boot up OBS again.
If I connect my Microphone directly as a USB (but limited to 16 bit) it works without any issues it seems like regardless of setup.
Everything I read so far sounds like that infamous "Windows Audio - external Audio Interface" driver issue that seems to plague some people (especially in Windows), and the only way I can be sure if it isn't something else (DPC Latency-GPU video recording stuff) is by trying the ASIO-Like setup.
I read from some people that setting up a lightweight DAW could be another solution with the same CPU cost, but that would be beyond my abilities/budget right now.
My only solution I could test out would right now would be atkAudio, but everytime I try and setup my Microphone as the Input and set the Output, OBS seems to not like that, and ends up locking up for a minute or two (since my previous experience with atk was to do the simple sidechains, ducks, filters).
Sorry if it's a bother, cheers in advance!
