Sure, MPlayer (using also alsa autio output) playing from the same streaming source: real 3m9.331s user 0m0.444s sys 0m0.132s During playback CPU usage is constant 0%, TIME reported by top just before interrupting playback to get the result was 0.53sec (so about half a sec). -- rhythmbox is slow! https://launchpad.net/bugs/73744