[denormalfloat]

> I had broken sound drivers for a couple of months until someone else found that it wasn't actually the drivers but another broken package that as of a month or so ago still wasn't fixed (but the problem had been reported)

I had the _exact_ same problem (the issue ended up be a MIDI program called timidity). The main problem for me was that Debian doesn't give any advice on how to report such issues (the website is firmly planted in the early 90s), and the mailing lists I found all appear to be dead. I wish Debian had a slightly more modern website.

[blihp]

That would be the one! I posted a stackoverflow question along with my workaround not knowing the cause. Fortunately, someone else identified timidity as the root cause. Definitely one of the stranger issues I've run into using testing in recent years, but far from the only one.