I have the same issue, regularly. It seems to happen under heavy load but I do not use VirtualBox: in my case its the Xilinx tools during synthesis which seem to destroy the audio output when the memory fills up (probably while its swapping).
Restarting the audio player usually fixes it. Sound card: 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio (rev 05) Driver: snd_hda_intel Ubuntu: 11.04 with all patches installed -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/795377 Title: [HDA-Intel - HDA Intel, playback] Sound is distorted To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/alsa-driver/+bug/795377/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
