iTunes 12 - song playback stops abruptly

Imported several mp3 albums into my iTunes library. When starting iTunes, (12.1.2), checks for gapless playback info on all all songs every time. When playing these songs in iTunes, playback randomly stops anywhere from halfway through to 10 seconds before the end. These same tracks will play on an iPhone 6, or in quicktime - so it's not an issue with the mp3 files themselves.

As a workaround, I decided to convert to AAC using iTunes. The AAC files are created with truncated lengths - the same as where the songs stop playback.

This has to be an iTunes error, something with the way it scans files for gapless info.

It effectively makes iTunes unusable. I'm using my iPhone to play music currently, which is a hack fix at best.

Read all the threads, boards, have submitted multiple feedback to Apple, nada. Seems like this issue has been going on for years with no fix. It will be a HUGE pain in the ***, but looks like I'll have to get out of the iTunes ecosphere.

Anyone have a solution or workaround?