Ubuntu Multimedia :: Stuttering In Amarok From Phonon-backend-xine?

In Karmic's Amarok 2.2, when you pause and then play, the sound usually stutters a few times before it starts playing smoothly. I originally thought this was a pulseaudio issue, as stuttering problems have been reported with pulse, but that wouldn't explain why sound is fine in mplayer, audacious, vlc, dragon player, and virtualbox. Only amarok has this problem. I found the cause of the problem: phonon-backend-xine. These steps will get rid of the stuttering problem:

1. Install phonon-backend-mplayer. You can get it from Rog131's PPA: [URL]

2. In Multimedia and Sound Configuration, which you can reach through amarok's Playback settings, on the Backend tab, click the arrows to move mplayer up above xine.

3. Quit and restart amarok.

There are some tradeoffs for good sound. Amarok seems to have some bugs when the sound backend is not xine, and bookmarks and OSD are broken when this backend is playing the sound. When you quit Amarok, it can't bookmark your place so it doesn't restart from where you last were, and after the track changes once, the OSD when you hover over the tray icon only says "Amarok - No track playing." You have to open Amarok to find that info. Are there any settings I can access for phonon-backend-xine that could fix the stuttering issue? The problems with the mplayer backend are minor compared with xine's bad sound, but I would like nice sound, OSD, and bookmarking.