diff -uNr xine-lib-1.1.15.orig/src/xine-engine/audio_out.c xine-lib-1.1.15/src/xine-engine/audio_out.c
--- xine-lib-1.1.15.orig/src/xine-engine/audio_out.c	2008-07-10 18:19:10.000000000 +0200
+++ xine-lib-1.1.15/src/xine-engine/audio_out.c	2009-01-10 21:57:20.000000000 +0100
@@ -1151,8 +1151,17 @@
   
     /*
      * calculate gap:
+     *
+     * HACK (rwa): If we have no video stream we do not need an AV sync and so
+     *             we assume a gap of 0. This seems to avoid the skips in the
+     *             first seconds when playing audio-only via the "glitch-free"
+     *             pulseaudio server.
      */
-    gap = in_buf->vpts - hw_vpts;
+    if (in_buf && in_buf->stream && in_buf->stream->video_decoder_plugin) {
+	gap = in_buf->vpts - hw_vpts;
+    } else {
+	gap = 0;
+    }
     lprintf ("hw_vpts : %" PRId64 " buffer_vpts : %" PRId64 " gap : %" PRId64 "\n",
              hw_vpts, in_buf->vpts, gap);