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[ThomasMartitz <1051665@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

FWIW, I'm on archlinux but experience the same issue (and I did so back
when I used ubuntu).

I thought I'd share that I could fix the crackling noise by disabling
realtime scheduling. Here's my daemon.conf which produces fine sound:

$ cat ~/.config/pulse/daemon.conf 
default-sample-rate = 48000
alternate-sample-rate = 44100
default-sample-format = s16le
realtime-scheduling = no

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1051665

Title:
  [USB-Audio - SB X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro, playback] Underruns, dropouts
  or crackling sound

Status in alsa-driver package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  The sound is constantly crackling when I'm listening to the music. If
  I listen to last.fm or youtube for instance in my Chromium browser the
  sound is really good. If I try to use Rhythmbox or Banshee first
  couple of songs may be heard fine but then crackling comes. Especially
  crackling starts if I launch Skype. Even if later I turn Skype off
  still the sound remains bad.

  I failed to try to redirect the sound directly to ALSA device
  bypassing PulseAudio server (I didn't find audio settings neither in
  Rhythmbox nor Banshee) so I cannot tell whether the problem depends on
  the server or it lays somewhere below in ALSA subsystem.

  Also I tried to play with default-fragments and default-fragment-size-msec values in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf but it didn't help. Then having read https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingSoundProblems page I added tsched=0 argument to 
  load-module module-udev-detect line in /etc/pulse/default.pa. The result was not successful.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
  Package: alsa-base 1.0.25+dfsg-0ubuntu1
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-30.48-generic 3.2.27
  Uname: Linux 3.2.0-30-generic x86_64
  AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.24.
  ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu13
  Architecture: amd64
  Card0.Amixer.info:
   Card hw:0 'PCH'/'HDA Intel PCH at 0xf7b00000 irq 58'
     Mixer name	: 'IDT 92HD87B1/3'
     Components	: 'HDA:111d76d1,102804b0,00100205'
     Controls      : 16
     Simple ctrls  : 9
  Card1.Amixer.info:
   Card hw:1 'Pro'/'Creative Technology Ltd SB X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro at usb-0000:0b:00.0-1, full sp'
     Mixer name	: 'USB Mixer'
     Components	: 'USB041e:30df'
     Controls      : 1
     Simple ctrls  : 1
  Card1.Amixer.values:
   Simple mixer control 'Power LED',0
     Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined penum
     Playback channels: Mono
     Mono: Playback [on]
  Card2.Amixer.info:
   Card hw:2 'NVidia'/'HDA NVidia at 0xf6080000 irq 17'
     Mixer name	: 'Nvidia GPU 14 HDMI/DP'
     Components	: 'HDA:10de0014,10de0101,00100100'
     Controls      : 24
     Simple ctrls  : 4
  Date: Sun Sep 16 22:46:15 2012
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20120425)
  PackageArchitecture: all
  ProcEnviron:
   TERM=xterm
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   SHELL=/usr/bin/tcsh
  SourcePackage: alsa-driver
  Symptom: audio
  Symptom_AlsaPlaybackTest: ALSA playback test through plughw:Pro successful
  Symptom_Card: GF108 High Definition Audio Controller - HDA NVidia
  Symptom_PulsePlaybackTest: PulseAudio playback test successful
  Symptom_Type: Underruns, dropouts, or "crackling" sound
  Title: [USB-Audio - SB X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro, playback] Underruns, dropouts or crackling sound
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
  dmi.bios.date: 03/22/2012
  dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
  dmi.bios.version: A10
  dmi.board.name: 0HVRTT
  dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
  dmi.board.version: A10
  dmi.chassis.type: 8
  dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
  dmi.chassis.version: Not Specified
  dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA10:bd03/22/2012:svnDellInc.:pnInspironN5110:pvrNotSpecified:rvnDellInc.:rn0HVRTT:rvrA10:cvnDellInc.:ct8:cvrNotSpecified:
  dmi.product.name: Inspiron N5110
  dmi.product.version: Not Specified
  dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

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