The influence of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SIDS) on waveform distortion of 141 kHz ultrasonic standing waves in liquids containing air bubbles was investigated for various transducer powers. Fast Fourier transform (FFT) operations were performed on the pressure waveform to obtain the harmonic components. In addition, the intensity of sonoluminescence (SL) was measured as a function of the power. Waveform distortion was observed for water at high applied power, with the curve exhibiting a steeper gradient for positive pressures and a broadened minimum for negative pressures. This was in reasonable agreement with theoretical studies reported in the literature. Much less distortion was found for a 1 mM SDS solution as the applied power was increased than for water or a 10 mM SDS solution. This may be attributed to a lower population of large coalesced bubbles in the I mM solution due to electrostatic repulsion, leading to damping of the sound energy and little cavitation noise because of viscous resistance to bubble radial motion in addition to adsorption and desorption of surfactant molecules at the bubble-liquid interface. For 10 mM SIDS, the power threshold for the harmonic components was lower than that for the SL. In this case, it appears that there is a range of applied powers where most bubbles are stable and cannot collapse. The influence of the addition of an electrolyte and a nonionic surfactant was also investigated.