Comment 54 for bug 190754

"pulseaudio is just using more CPU"

That's not it at all. If you actually look at the CPU usage, pulseaudio is using some tiny fraction (on my system usually less than 1%). The problem is that pulseaudio is using a very short buffer, so if it doesn't get to run exactly when it needs to, the correct audio data is not available and you hear a pop. The problem is latency, not throughput.