Hi, It sounds like this is a soundcard driver problem rather than a problem with saytime. I took a quick look at play (sox) and I didn't see anything interesting. Can you send the details of your system? (cat /proc/sound) Pehaps also 'ls -la /dev/audio' (one theory is that it is a symlink to /dev/dsp for some odd reason). I'd also like to know if 'cat filename.au > /dev/audio' sounds right.
Thanks, David
