Thom, thanks for those explanations. Do you know if, as new versions of PulseAudio are released, we can update to them via the App Manager or do we have to wait for a new firmware release?

Anyway, I'm not sure if PulseAudio should be blamed for the sluggishness of the system when using the Media Player, since in my experience it is the mediaplayer process itself that sometimes takes over most of the CPU. PulseAudio rarely seems to go over 20%, and other media players don't seem to have as much of an impact either (not that I have used them as often as the default one).