audio dropouts still

[Zenaan Harkness <zen@freedbms.net>]

Now I have a "simple" audio setup, and still getting dropouts:

$ ps x | egrep -vi disk\|gvfs | egrep alsa\|jack\|pulse\|mix\|vol\|aqu
 3946 ?        Ssl    0:00 xfce4-volumed

 7849 pts/17   SLl    0:14 qjackctl

 7854 ?        SLsl   0:34 /usr/bin/jackd -dalsa -dhw:PCH -r44100
-p1024 -n2 -D -Phw:PCH,7

 7865 pts/17   SLl    0:22 /usr/bin/alsa_in -j cloop -d cloop -q 1

 7866 pts/17   SLl    0:17 /usr/bin/alsa_out -j ploop -d ploop -q 1

 7867 pts/17   SLl    1:21 python /usr/bin/jack_mixer

 9504 tty1     SLl    0:31 aqualung


There are NO jackd XRUNs (now that I've upped -p anyway).

The drop outs sound like they go for around 50-150ms, I can't be sure.

They 'sound' like there's a bit of fading going on, rather than a full drop out.

Perhaps there's some sort of bit-rate conversion library which is
running out of data?

I would like some suggestions on approaches to debugging this. Willing
to learn :)

TIA
Zenaan