Have you looked at 
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_ALSA_sound_mixer_aka_dmix to set up the 
sound card correctly?

My understanding is that the Gstreamer plugins are necessary to get the 
correct codecs to play.  Rhythmbox doesn't know how to play anything, so 
it relies on Gstreamer to decode the files (mp3, ogg, etc).  Gstreamer 
then hands it over to ALSA to play the file. 

There is an Amarok faq that talks about this.

alexanderhenry@cox.net wrote:
> chip33az@netscape.net wrote:
>> Do you have gst-plugins-gnomevfs installed?
>>
>> I haven't used Gentoo in quite a while, but Rhythmbox is dependent on 
>> the gstreamer program (as are most Gnome media applications).  I 
>> would verify that you have the gstreamer plug-ins installed.
>>
>
> Default ALSA works for me, as long as I set the volume up.
>
> A suggestion may be that you don't have the right sound driver 
> compiled in your kernel, then the right configuration (in Linux, not 
> setting the volume in ALSA above zero is a cliche).
>
> The RTFM's should be approached in this order, first Google the 
> gentoo.org website, then gentoo-wiki, then the web itself for exact 
> error messages, then try the #gentoo* chatrooms on freenet.  I've 
> always landed an answer on one or another, and there's just more 
> expertise out there than on the PLUG list.  I even managed to break 
> portage once at 2am while drunk, and got it back on track with help 
> from the chat rooms to continue my emerge -e world.  (I was doing 
> something extreme.  I never learned how to re-link gcc when it 
> updates, so everything was emerged with a very old gcc, not to mention 
> non-athlon t-bird settings, so I had to recompile everything.  I 
> didn't start this procedure while drunk, it just got interrupted while 
> I was drunk 8).
>
> The safe flags can be found here:  http://gentoo-wiki.com/Safe_Cflags
>
> I've never debugged sound to a large degree, so I have no suggestions 
> other than the research order.
>
> I'm trying compiles with -Os.  I'm thinking, what's faster, a loop 
> in-cache which jumps and misses a few cycles in a jump, or a 1000-time 
> unrolled loop which always misses cache?  I have no evidence, but hey 
> I can do it, so I do :).
>

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