PulseAudio high CPU load and sound gets interrupted
So, when everything fails try to remove and re-install. I did this and it worked for me...
sudo apt-get --purge remove pulseaudio
Which removed also some dependant packages (confirmation asked), which had to be re-installed altogether with the following command
sudo apt-get install indicator-sound* libcanberra-pulse* pulseaudio* pulseaudio-module-bluetooth*