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== Sound can be heard but it is distorted ==

* Some cards, notably SB Live! ones, suffer from distortion if the volume on some subchannels is higher than 66%. Some suffer distortion if the <tt>Master</tt> volume is higher than 66%, for some others the threshold is 50%. Reduce all volume setting. If the distortion goes away, experiment until you determine which are the highest volume settings that don't trigger distortion.
* Some cards, especially motherboard chipsets, have small limits on the fragment size (specified for example in the DMixPlugin configuration). Many cards cannot  handle fragment sizes greater than 4096 bytes, and if it is bigger the fragment seems to be truncated and the sound becomes choppy.
* Some cards, especially recent ones, can only handle a fixed set of sampling frequencies. Some can only handle a single frequency, usually 48000Hz. try to use the ''plug:'' plugin prefix when playing. If your card can only play a single fixed frequency you must ensure that the driver is told that (by the use of driver-specific option parameters), and the ALSA library is  setup up to output sample only at that frequency. Usually this will involve using the ''plug'' plugin in ''/etc/asound.conf''.