FC4: choppy sound - seems to be ESD?

[Brian Mury]

I am experiencing choppy sound since installing FC4. The "chop" is very
fast and regular - sort of a machine gun sound.

This doesn't always occur. I've tried a couple programs (xine, gaim)
that let me choose the sound output device, and it only seems to happen
when they are set to ESD. Anybody else experiencing this? Any fixes?

I'm also curious what it means if I set the sound output device to
"automatic" in xine or gaim.