thanks. Btw do you guys have any good article links about the differences between pulse and alsa and why one might be superior to the other.
Pulse has more features, but sits atop alsa. So it's not generally one or the other as pulse still needs alsa underneath. I don't have any docs on which is 'better' but a quick search reveals a lot of opinion on the matter. Bear in mind many Linux distros introduced Pulse a little early (Ubuntu [my employer] included). This caused quite a bit of hatred for it, as it was a bit unstable. Now those issues are mostly gone, and it Just Works™.