Created attachment 81061 [details] lshw for machine experiencing the problem. To reproduce (on Ubuntu 12.04 and intel HDA): Just boot and log in. Already startup sound can be heard crippled and all other applications playing sound show the same effect. Problem not experienced in kernel 3.4, but 3.6-rc6 and rc7 have the problem.
Created attachment 81071 [details] Crippled sound example Sound effect ogg-example attached. I have previously filed the bug here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pulseaudio/+bug/1055188
Hey, could be this? https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/9/26/53 I suffered from the same and patched my kernel by reverting that change. Works fine now...
This bug should have been fixed in upcoming 3.7-rc1 and 3.6.2. The fix commit is 99df18b31db389ec6abc8ad5415c14e7bb752b58.