hello smoshea, can you try to reset all custom network preferences in firefox and see if this changes things? enter about:config into the firefox address bar (confirm the info message in case it shows up) & search for preferences starting with network.http - right-click and reset each custom entry (=shown in bold) back to the default value.

since there are also remnants of conduit showing up in the preferences, it may be worth running a scan with different security tools specialised in adware like the free version of malwarebytes and adwcleaner. Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware

Thanks for pointing me to adwcleaner. I appreciate the assistance. I ran the program and reset the network preferences per your instructions, but I am still having problems. Right now I have The Decemberists - Make You Better playing on YouTube on another tab, and am experiencing the same glitchy audio that has been happening. Any other ideas?

another thing you may want to try is to update the flash plugin to version 16.0.0.235 which was released a short while ago. you can download it from http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/distribution3.html (use the windows-exe for plugin-based browsers).

That seems to be different from Shockwave. Will installing that conflict with that? Should I uninstall one of them, or do they work fine together? Sorry if this seems like a newb question.

those are the same products - "adobe flash player" is the consumer facing term "shockwave flash" the technical name...

Re: Shockwave vs. Adobe Flash, thanks for the info! I had seen the two terms used on different pages on Adobe's site, so it seemed like they were different players. Also, for some reason, Firefox's plugin check never picked up that the flash player was out of date.

I believe my audio issues are gone now, thanks!

Oh nuts, nevermind, the problem is not solved after all.... what the heck!?

ETA: Though, now I just heard the same problem with an Outlook notification, so I suspect the problem is my computer... oh well, thanks!