When breaking dirt blocks you hear the dirt breaking sound as well as the stone block breaking sound.
Try hitting at a smoothstone block without any tools, and then try the same with the dirt block. It then becomes much easier to hear.
Might be other issues too with breaking wood, where it gives the same "stone block" sound effect in the background.
Comments 3
Is this still a concern in the current Minecraft version 1.6.2 / Launcher version 1.1.3 ? If so, please update the affected versions in order to best aid Mojang ensuring bugs are still valid in the latest releases/pre-releases.
I've had this problem as well in both "1.5.1" & "1.5.2".