I read on a thread the other day that its to do with loading things like music and your settings, or something like that. Never seen any actual J-Mod response on it though.
That loading thing looks like the audio buffering. I think audio is no longer saved locally and it streams as you play the game. I think the reason was to save space because audio is now cd quality. I'm not completely sure why that happens but if it's true I find it dumb we can't at least opt to cache audio.
Hi
I mostly play with music off, though sometimes turn it on with new quests etc to check it out. I like having it on for Dg too, except for quite some time now, I get weird screeching sounds in Dg.