Comment 15 for bug 221038

I have once again returned with more info. I have discovered that the problem is not actually solved by the link that I posted above, but is indeed caused by setting the value in /etc/pulse/daemon.conf to:
default-sample-channels = 6

I set it back to 2 on my dell desktop and everything was fine. PulseAudio is actually what crashes, and as a result, crashes whatever happens to be using PulseAudio at the time, such as Rhythmbox.

It would be nice to see this fixed by Intrepid.