I got this to work by changing all playback to AD198x analog, and all recording to USB audio (as I have a webcam), in System->preferences->sound->devices tab. I also needed to alter my Skype settings to get it to work there. On the command line, "aplay test.wav" gives me the same problem as before, but "aplay -Dhw:1 test.wav" is OK. I think I have just bypassed the alsa mixer.
aplay -Ddefault test.wav gives me the nasty crackles, but aplay -Ddefault:1 test.wav does not; unfortunately, I don't know how to make "default:1" the real default, and the alsa documentation is a bit daunting. -- sound crackles with 2.6.27 kernel https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/262791 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs