Okay.
I've got archlinux 0.7 installed. It comes with Alsa, and I ran through alsaconf and everything looks good. It works perfect as root, but as soon as I try to open the alsamixer a user... or if I try to run xmms, it says this... :

alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: Permission denied.

and also it does not give me any permission to play anything in xmms.

I thought it could be something with owner, read/write permissions and all that stuff... but I think I went through my box 15 times, and no luck...
I can't find anything, which makes it work.....

So now, sound only works in root.

Can anyone help?

I can't tell if you've tried this, so I'm sorry if I'm suggesting something that doesn't help, but you could try looking in /etc/group and making sure that your user has audio permissions.

thanks....
didn't try that one... now it works!!!