[CentOS] Sound drop out with totem. mplayer Can't open audio device /dev/dsp

[Nicolas Thierry-Mieg]

Mark LaPierre wrote:
> Hey all.
>
> This morning I found that my audio playback is randomly sprinkled with
> sound skips and dropouts.  I went to /var/log/yum.log and found this:
>
> Feb 09 20:18:22 Updated: lame-3.99.4-2.el6.rf.i686
>
> I'm not saying that caused the problem but it's all I could find that
> changed.
>
> When I ls in /dev there is no dsp entry.
> That would explain why mplayer Can't open audio device /dev/dsp.
> I don't know why there is no /dev/dsp.
> MPlayer 1.0rc4-4.4.6

seems you're mixing repos here, that's not the mplayer provided by 
repoforge AFAIK.
this could be part or all of your problem.