If you like to listen to an audio or watch a video at higher speed, the sound could get distorted, i.e. with the wrong pitch ("chipmunk mode"). In mplayer when you change the speed using the keys "[" to decrease or "]" to increase; the tempo is not adjusted accordingly. In command line a solution is with the use of "-af scaletempo" option, example:
mplayer -af scaletempo videofile.mp4
The speed can be included as
mplayer -af scaletempo -speed 2 videofile.mp4
or being changed later with the keys "[" or "]".
In the case of using a "Mplayer" GUI, like in the case of "SMPlayer", the "-af scaletempo" functionality is already integrated.