I'm running Amarok 1.4 on Ubuntu Dapper using the Xine engine.  The output plugin is set to autodetect.  When transitioning from song to song on a playlist, Amarok frequently cuts off the first 2 or three seconds of the beginning of a song.  If I double click to play a particular song, it works fine, but moving from song to song on the playlist, I often loose the first couple of seconds.  I do not have crossfading enabled and adding a gap between songs doesn't fix the problem.

Is this for all your songs? I have a similar problem but for .wma-files.

Most of mine are m4a files.  I don't believe it does this every time, but it does frequently.  I haven't noticed any pattern in what songs it happens to, other than the fact that it only happens when transitioning between songs on a play list.

Try to disable crossfading...
Hope that helps.

I've never enabled crossfading.  Could the fact that the music files are on a read-only NTFS partition be the source of the problem?

Maybe. I have all my songs on an NTFS disc but only my .wma-files get cut in the beginning.

I have the same problem as well and it's most likely an NTFS problem. Strangely enough enabling crossfading actually fixed the problem for me, probably has something to do with buffering. Try it, and if you don't want crossfading just set it too the lowest setting (400 ms) you hardly notice it.
Hope this helps.