Resetting the sound system

[Michaël Grünewald]

Dear list,

the audio software I use sometimes seems to handle unappropriately its 
input and leave the sound system in a strange state.  When this happens, 
the lowest frequencies of the played sound are very attenuated and what 
is still audible sounds unpleasantly metallic.  Rebooting the machine 
immediately brings up the sound system in shape again, but it would be 
nice if they were a more sensible way to reset it!

Here are the relevant lines of `dmesg`:

pcm0: <VIA VT8237> port 0xe100-0xe1ff irq 22 at device 17.5 on pci0
pcm0: [ITHREAD]
pcm0: <VIA Technologies VIA1617A AC97 Codec>
pcm0: <VIA DXS Enabled: DXS 4 / SGD 1 / REC 1>

Best regards,
Michael