System: Slackware updated to \"/current\" packages.
Amarok: 1.2.2 (slackware package obtained from this site\'s download section)
gstreamer/gst-plugins: 0.8.9/0.8.8 (slackware packages obtained from linuxpackages.net)

Problem Description:
If amarok is configured with gstreamer as playback backend, the first 3-4 seconds of each song are in very low volume. After that small period the sound volume sharply goes up in the correct level. This problem exists only with gstreamer backend. Xine seems to work fine.

This happened to me only when I had turned on fading (with gstreamer) and had a lot of CPU load. (As far as I know, fading isn\'t a built-in function of gst, so it has to be emulated)

Does it work without fading?

Happy news!
The problem was solved!

What I did was:

1. Upgraded my system to kde-3.4.0 slackware packages (which solved an annoying bug in my koqueror web browser\'s behaviour).

2. Compiled amarok 1.2.3 tarball against kde-3.4.0.

I didn\' t touch the gstreamer packages at all.
Step 1 may be unnecessary and I did it just because I wanted to upgrade my system and not in order to solve the problem, so I can\'t tell if it contributes to the solution.

I guess that the problem was rather a small incompatibility between my setup and the amarok-1.2.2 slackware package found at the download section of this site.