This issue happened as a result of me connecting the core machine directly to a switch. Previous to this, everything worked when connecting core directly to the modem/router which had 4 ethernet ports, one of which went to the Bridge machine. Now bridge machine is plugged into switch. Switch is a netgear 24 port 1g ethernet switch
I resolved the issue by unstalling/re-installing bridge. fyi… seems that when a new router is thrown into the chain, bridge would need to be re-installed in order to pick up prior configured audio devices powered directly by bridge.