Work for a large company in the Telecom industry....so we have lots of laptops around and I have seen many brands.
Dell machines seem to be the most problematic of the bunch for us. At least compared to what I would call the other "major" brands such as Compaq, IBM, and Toshiba that are in use at my company. Have only seen a few others from companies like Sony, Gateway, HP....so don't think I can fairly form an opinion on those.
Personally, I've been very happy with the Toshiba laptops I've had. Compaqs have been ok, and my co-workers that have had IBM machines have had few major complaints. If I had to go out and get one using my own money, I'd most likely be shopping for a Toshiba first, and Compaq second (if the price was low enough).
As to your audio question, almost every laptop has an audio output. Most often, this is in the form of a headset output jack. You can easily find cables or adapters required to use that output to connect to your home stereo. The sound should be more than reasonably good.
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