After installing the latest version of XBMC (9.11 repack), I noticed a lot of the small issues I was having with previous builds were fixed in this version. Pretty much everything could be handled via the configuration interface, but I found that I couldn't keep the crossfade option enabled, otherwise I would get a 'failed to initialize audio device' when trying to stream the audio via HDMI and moving from track to track.

I quickly googled the issue and found a recommended solution on an XBMC.org thread, but the blog post they linked to was having a database connection error. I found a google-cached version of the website and figured I would post a copy on my blog as well in case other people are looking for the solution.