Hi.

from what I know, the hardware is almost 100% unrelated to this problem you experience. This counts for the empegs kernel just as well. It might however be a problem that the kernel does not provide full OSS compatibility (it does limit the blocks send to /dev/audio to be a certain size (4000something bytes or samples, I am not sure about this and would have to check the sources to find out).
I would first look at the player code (your player), perhaps you are (unknowingly) doing something nasty with pointers. If you are sure your player isn't the problem, check the (ported) lib.
AND: I would certainly be interested in a .MOD/.MID capable empeg (especially if that functionality would be in the "official" player software somehow (I would prefer a nice plugin-interface, like it was promised some (long) time ago).

cu,
sven

proud MkII owner (12GB blue/green/smoked, #080000113)