Hi, I have downloaded a 32bit openSUSE 11.1 (on a dual boot with Vista) and I am running the GNOME interface. My Acer Aspire 4530’s internal speakers work, but they aren’t very good quality.
I used some NexXtech USB speakers (which work fine with Vista), to make the sound quality better.
I added the USB sound card in YaST, and made it the default sound playback option in “Sound”. When I pressed “Test”, the speakers worked normally. But when I view a listen to a song on youtube, the internal speakers are used instead.
I then went back to YaST, and made the USB sound card the default one, but then, no sound came at all!
I don’t have USB speakers nor USB headphones. But I try to help users generally with their sound, so to the audio troubleshooting guide I added this link: USB headphones - openSUSE
You appear to have done the YaST part of that, but perhaps there are other tidbits there that might help? Have you restarted since adding YaST ? Is there any configuration selection in your desktop that you can change?
I do note some users with pulse audio and KDE 4.3, to have firefox use the correct speakers, needed to install pavucontrol and there turn off the internal audio of their PC (in pavucontrol). The same may be true with Gnome.