Performance problems with external sounds and Sound class

Question

I'm using Sound & SoundChannel classes to load and play external MP3s and I'm seeing terrible playback performance on my 3G phone. Audio starts out ok, but will gradually get more and more choppy and eventually crashes the app. The MP3s themselves are typical sizes, 2 - 6 MB and of various types (VBR, CBR).
On top of that, when the phone gets locked (with the app still running), the audio sputters and stops completely. When I unlock, it begins where it left off. Anyone else seeing this?
My code is pretty standard:
private var soundPlayer:Sound;
private var soundChannel:SoundChannel;
public function load(url:String, playNow:Boolean = true):void {
  if (soundChannel) {
    soundChannel.stop();
  soundPlayer = new Sound();
  soundPlayer.addEventListener(IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, onIOError);
  soundPlayer.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, onProgress);
  soundPlayer.addEventListener(Event.ID3, onID3);
  trace('Loading new stream: '+url);
  var request:URLRequest = new URLRequest(url);
  soundPlayer.load(request);
  if (playNow) {
    this.isPlaying = true;
    soundChannel = soundPlayer.play();
    soundChannel.addEventListener(Event.SOUND_COMPLETE, onSoundComplete);

Answer 1

this is from another forum (http://discussions.info.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2542931&tstart=0&messageID=12106188 ):
"I've spoken to the developers of of couple of these apps, and they've all said it's a memory fragmentation/low memory condition.
Restart the phone. Don't just turn it off and on, but restart it.
Hold the on/off button and the home button down like you were going to turn it off. When you see the swipe to turn off message, keep holding the buttons down.
In a few seconds the screen will flash, and then go dark.
Now it's really off.
Turn it back on (restarting it). All should be well.
The iPhone is really a computer. Performing a restart like this every  once in a while (weekly, bi-weekly) is a good idea, esp if you use  memory intensive apps."
coop