I found the solution. Running Dolphin as a super user enabled me to use both the OpenAL and ALSA backends, both of which work very well for me. ALSA's performance is especially outstanding in that sound plays fluidly even when the framerate is under par. Thank you, Shonumi and ShadowFlash, for your suggestions.
The only thing that would make me more satisfied would be to know which files need their permissions changed or what else might need to be done to allow me to use these backends with my account. However, this is a trivial desire, since running Dolphin as a super user is very easy to do.
In the unlikely event that anyone else ever needs this solution and does not know how to run a program as a super user, simply change the command in your Dolphin menu item to "gksu dolphin-emu." You may need to enter your password when launching Dolphin using this menu item.
The only thing that would make me more satisfied would be to know which files need their permissions changed or what else might need to be done to allow me to use these backends with my account. However, this is a trivial desire, since running Dolphin as a super user is very easy to do.
In the unlikely event that anyone else ever needs this solution and does not know how to run a program as a super user, simply change the command in your Dolphin menu item to "gksu dolphin-emu." You may need to enter your password when launching Dolphin using this menu item.