A problem with sound in Linux

[Alejandro Diaz Infante]

I've been noticing that in a good number of soundcards (including mine, a SB 
Live! with OSS driver), using "play somesound.au" or "play audioclip 
somesound.au" results a garbled audio output. There's nothing wrong with the 
audio files, and I can even play them perfectly in a console or terminal 
emulator, using "xanim somesound.au" or "play somesound.au". If I use the wav 
format, I got the same result.

Curiously, the only way I had found to play correctly those files in MetaCard 
is using something like "start player somesound".

Does somebody know why the play command does not work well in MetaCard with
some soundcards, even though 'xanim' is up and running? Is there a
way to solve it without having to create a player for each audio file?

Thanks in advance.