Durand Hicks, I had that covered already - On the last test, I just did, I muted "everything" except what I was recording, and then "unmuted" the PCM to play the recording back - no luck - still static recorded...

Markus, good idea, nothing shows up in dmesg or in syslog - technically, the only thing is fstab that sets up the cd-rom devices - and they are set to noauto, and when I play a audio cd, or dvd, the device is never "mounted" but simply xine or xmms is "pointed" to the device for access - but it was a good idea.

PS - figured out my "sluggish system" problem - since taking out alsa from the boot area - removed it from init.d for start and stops levels 1 through 5 - arTs enabled to be sound - the server for arTs was causing the sluggishness. Working with the ALSA Group, I got alsa back into the init.d area again, and they appear to be more interested in helping now.

Cuddles