I run konsole on gnome.  When I first log in and type in a konsole, the konsole bell works (for example, trying to backspace past the prompt, or hitting tab-tab).  However, errors soon pop up that say:

   The audio playback device HDA Iintel (AD198x Analog)  does not work. 
   Falling back to Esound (ESD). 

Sometimes these errors won't go away without logging out.  Eventually sound stops working in konsole.  The time when sound stops working in konsole often coincides with some other app starting that has sound (banshee, mplayer). 

/var/log/messages has a few things: 

Jun  4 19:30:22 lap pulseaudio[8412]: pid.c: Daemon already running.
Jun  4 19:30:22 lap pulseaudio[8412]: main.c: pa_pid_file_create() failed.
Jun  4 19:30:22 lap pulseaudio[8415]: core-util.c: setpriority(): Permission denied
Jun  4 19:30:22 lap pulseaudio[8415]: pid.c: Daemon already running.
Jun  4 19:30:22 lap pulseaudio[8415]: main.c: pa_pid_file_create() failed.
Jun  4 19:32:42 lap pulseaudio[9330]: core-util.c: setpriority(): Permission denied
Jun  4 19:32:42 lap pulseaudio[9330]: pid.c: Stale PID file, overwriting.
Jun  4 19:32:42 lap pulseaudio[9330]: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_NICE, (31, 31)) failed: Operation not permitted
Jun  4 19:32:42 lap pulseaudio[9330]: main.c: setrlimit(RLIMIT_RTPRIO, (9, 9)) failed: Operation not permitted
Jun  4 19:32:42 lap pulseaudio[9333]: core-util.c: setpriority(): Permission denied
Jun  4 19:32:42 lap pulseaudio[9333]: pid.c: Daemon already running.
Jun  4 19:32:42 lap pulseaudio[9333]: main.c: pa_pid_file_create() failed.
Jun  4 19:32:42 lap pulseaudio[9331]: core-util.c: setpriority(): Permission denied
Jun  4 19:32:42 lap pulseaudio[9331]: pid.c: Daemon already running.
Jun  4 19:32:42 lap pulseaudio[9331]: main.c: pa_pid_file_create() failed.
Jun  4 19:32:42 lap pulseaudio[9336]: core-util.c: setpriority(): Permission denied
Jun  4 19:32:42 lap pulseaudio[9336]: pid.c: Daemon already running.
Jun  4 19:32:42 lap pulseaudio[9336]: main.c: pa_pid_file_create() failed.