diff --git a/KREngine/kraken/KRAudioManager.cpp b/KREngine/kraken/KRAudioManager.cpp
index 72aa05b..9f8449a 100644
--- a/KREngine/kraken/KRAudioManager.cpp
+++ b/KREngine/kraken/KRAudioManager.cpp
@@ -1491,7 +1491,19 @@ void KRAudioManager::setGlobalAmbientGain(float gain)
 
 void KRAudioManager::startFrame(float deltaTime)
 {
-    m_mutex.lock();
+    static unsigned long trackCount = 0;
+    static unsigned long trackMissed = 0;
+    trackCount++;
+    if (trackCount > 200) {
+//        printf("Missed %ld out of 200 try_lock attempts on audio startFrame\n", trackMissed);
+        trackCount = 0;
+        trackMissed = 0;
+    }
+    
+    if (!m_mutex.try_lock()) {
+        trackMissed++;
+        return;     // if we are rendering audio don't update audio state
+    }               // NOTE: this misses anywhere from 0 to to 30 times out of 200 on the iPad2
     
     // ----====---- Determine Ambient Zone Contributions ----====----
     m_ambient_zone_weights.clear();
diff --git a/KREngine/kraken/KRAudioManager.h b/KREngine/kraken/KRAudioManager.h
index 132e662..c19697c 100644
--- a/KREngine/kraken/KRAudioManager.h
+++ b/KREngine/kraken/KRAudioManager.h
@@ -40,9 +40,10 @@
 #include "KRMat4.h"
 #include "KRAudioSource.h"
 
-const int KRENGINE_AUDIO_MAX_POOL_SIZE = 40; //32;
-    // for Circa we play a maximum of 7 mono audio streams at once + cross fading with ambient
-    // so we could safely say a maximum of 10 streams, which would be 33 buffers
+const int KRENGINE_AUDIO_MAX_POOL_SIZE = 60; //32;
+    // for Circa we play a maximum of 11 mono audio streams at once + cross fading with ambient
+    // so we could safely say a maximum of 12 or 13 streams, which would be 39 buffers
+    // do the WAV files for the reverb use the same buffer pool ???
 
 const int KRENGINE_AUDIO_MAX_BUFFER_SIZE = 5120;  // in bytes
     // this is the buffer for our decoded audio (not the source file data)