Comment 5 for bug 1530365

I added upstream bug and edited the bug title to reflect that it isn't related to that specific microphone but a bug in Audacity (or PortAudio...).

From the release notes here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Release_Notes_2.1.2#Miscellaneous_platform-specific_issues

>A playback or recording freeze, recording dropouts or fast playback may occur when using PulseAudio. Freezes may be caused by repeatedly starting and stopping playback or recording in quick succession (or by holding down the Play or Record button). Workarounds: Try launching Audacity from the terminal with the pulse latency set to 30 ms in an environment variable:

env PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=30 audacity
If you get underruns noted in the terminal, try a higher number in the PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC command. If the problem is unchanged, try a lower number. Alternatively, bypass pulseaudio by setting the playback and recording device to an ALSA (hw) choice in Device Toolbar