Ironically, Ubuntu was the only distro that didn't present audio stuttering for me out of the box. I usually run Slackware and it was present there, which led me to research it until I found a fix. I chalked it up to Ubuntu staying on the bleeding edge even with their LTS releases, along with having the largest user base by far (more users = more people with this bug = more incentive to fix it).

Either way, it was an easy fix for Slackware and the other half dozen distros I've tried on this machine, and I've found generally that Slackware is the best fit for someone who doesn't mind getting their hands dirty occasionally, in exchange for stability and lack of dependency issues.