Right after 2.4 Patch was released, the o-boards' Tech Support forum popped up with several "2.4 Audio Issues" threads, in fact I posted one myself.
To the few that Blizz actually responded to, they said in essence "Update your Drivers, we didn't really change anything, we just added a sound quality slider."
Well, nearly a week later, I go to the o-boards, curious if they acknowledged the problem yet or not, and what do I see?
A Blizz poster saying "We think we found the bug, it seems sounds are being piped to non-existent channels and this is causing errors."
Everyone wanna say it together?
D'OH!!
lol.
They shoulda listened to us in the first place when we said "Um, it was working fine before, something in the patch screwed it up."
So to sum up...
Someone (or more) reports a possible problem -- the tech support staff (who aren't devs) run down their checklist and think "hmmm lets get him to update his sound card drivers as that is the most likely solution to this problem it is in 95% of cases".
A few more people report a similar problem and the front line staff (who aren't devs) think "Ah, maybe there's more to it..."
So these people go off and update their drivers while the front line staff (who did I mention aren't devs) report said problem, possibly on a webform maybe via email, I can't say! They send it off to the team who may be handling reported patch issues.
Less thank a week later they come back to you and say "Oh yes, we've identified the issue, thanks for the help, but still in most cases what you've been told already would have solved the problem".
So they told you the most likely cause while they investigated further... and come on... you said it yourself; "Nearly a week later..."
So did they listen to you? Well... hmmm.. given that it took them less than a week to find said problem and fix it.. I'd think so... what's more that's a pretty damn good turn around, well done Blizz