Like I said before you can simply cause the bug to happen intentionally.  Then leave your stereo on at all times.  Every time you load a game the stereo will be working, but build and buy modes won't have any sound.  Of course the stereo will become non functional as soon as it's turned off or the channel is changed.

I was reinforcing what the fix is for and how to reproduce the bug.  He can of course just shut off music in the options menu, but that will disable all music in game entirely.

No, this fixes it so that the build/buy music will play again as well as the stereo.  If you don't want build/buy music, just make another household active, buy them a stereo and turn it on.  Then switch back to your house and turn off/on the stereo.  That will cause the bug that stops music from playing in the build/buy menus.

Going to try it out now, thanks for the fast service.

Yeah, basically as soon as you go to another lot with a stereo on it the bug starts.  For some reason sims seem to like to dance more than anything, so their going to turn the stereo on almost 100% of the time.  Usually on a new game I can go about 10 to 20 minutes before my stereo stops working on my active sim's lot.

Thanks!  Apparently the bug is caused because the game plays the sound for the stereo, build, and buy mode all on the one sound channel.  When a stereo is turned on at another lot it takes priority in the channel queue.  So once you turn off your stereo or change the channel it goes silent as it drops below the other stereo in the channel queue.  Now notice, I've never looked at any of the code in question, I'm just assuming how it works based on what happens in game.

I've actually been wondering why no one has come out with something like this already?  I guess people are thinking that EA is going to come out with a fix for it?  Though I doubt very seriously they'll be patching it considering this bug has been part of the game since release day, three patch versions have been released, and it's still there.

Anyone out there willing to write a mod that would turn off every stereo in town OTHER than the one inside the house of the active household when it's turned on?

This would completely cure the no music except for custom music working on the stereo as well as there being no music in build and buy mode.

I've tested to make sure that the fix would work by deleting all the stereos in every house except for my active sim, the sound on the stereo immediately started working again.  Unfortunately I don't know a thing about C# so writing something like this is completely out of my league.  I'm thinking it shouldn't take a competent modder more than a few hours at the most to come up with a way to do this.