I used esd on my arch box without any problem but after doing pacman -Syu last night, something went wrong with esd. The sound is bad and I don't know why since everything just fine before. I tried to switch the sound output to OSS and ALSA and both are working fine. Searching on arch forum and esd documentation doesn't help much. So I'd try to play with esd command options.

Esound version 0.2.35
Usage: esd [options]
-v --version print version information
-d DEVICE force esd to use sound device DEVICE
-b run server in 8 bit sound mode
-r RATE run server at sample rate of RATE
-as SECS free audio device after SECS of inactivity (-1 to disable)
-unix use unix domain sockets instead of tcp/ip
-tcp use tcp/ip sockets instead of unix domain
-public make tcp/ip access public (other than localhost)
-promiscuous start unlocked and owned (disable authenticaton) NOT RECOMMENDED
-terminate terminate esd daemon after last client exits
-noterminate do not terminate esd daemon after last client exits
-nobeeps disable startup beeps
-beeps enable startup beeps
-trust start esd even if use of /tmp/.esd can be insecure
-port PORT listen for connections on PORT (only for tcp/ip)
-bind ADDRESS binds to ADDRESS (only for tcp/ip)

Possible devices are: hw:0 (C-Media PCI CMI8738)

I try esd -r 22100 but nothing different. then I try with esd -d hw:0. To my surprise, the sound is back to normal again ! :) . I don't really know what's the real problem but as long as it's working ....