deniseweird wrote:
I don't know why, but the sound is pretty crackly for me now.

This only happens with Snes9x so far. The terminal output seems rather fine, but I'll post it just in case:
ruti@ruti-desktop:~$ /media/sda5/Apps/snes9x-1.51/snes9x-gtk
Initializing sound...
--> (OSS : /dev/dsp)...OK
Using ROM Final Fantasy V.smc in /media/sda5/Roms/SNES/Final Fantasy V.zip
Map_HiROMMap
absent: SA1(50); next: 'SHO:734213:'
absent: SP7(65596); next: 'SHO:734213:'
absent: RTC(24); next: 'SHO:734213:'
absent: BSX(147); next: 'SHO:734213:'
absent: MOV(4); next: 'SHO:734213:'
absent: DSP(1450); next: 'SHO:734213:'
absent: CX4(8192); next: 'SHO:734213:'
absent: IPU(0); next: 'SHO:734213:'
absent: GFX(0); next: 'SHO:734213:'
Are you saying you can go back to an older version and the sound problem disappears?
As far as I remember, nothing has changed in the sound code for the last several versions except for some defaults, and if you had a previous config file, these settings would be left alone. If you've erased your old configuration, however, you'll want to turn back on Master volume control and Volume envelope height reading to maintain parity with old save states.
If an older version still works, let me know. I'd like to fix any regressions, if possible.
*edit* Update:
I ran some tests myself, and I noticed that, on my system, high CPU usage from external apps seem to cause static more than it used to. This might be the effect of some newer kernel threading changes affecting the audio thread priority.
I've posted a new version (55) that allows more finely-granulated changes to the sound buffers. Setting the buffer to 32ms, instead of the aggressive and infeasible 16ms it was before seems to fix the problem for me. Let me know if this helps.