hah!

i got a solution to this problem.
i got help from the #fedora channel on irc.dal.net
here's what i did:
i changed the "0" in the third line of my modprobe.conf to a "1" and saved the change. but still i got no sound, even though the files were seemingly playing in xmms.
so .... i was then instructed to run "lsmod" to show all the modules running on my machine.
that revealed a lot of info that i did not understand but it turns out it was basically showing things properly set.
so ... i simply ran this command in shell:
system-config-soundcard
and that gave me this output:
Simple mixer control 'PCM',0
Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined
Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
Limits: Playback 0 - 31
Front Left: Playback 23 [74%] [on]
Front Right: Playback 23 [74%] [on]
-8
with some confusion and patience, eventually the "Soundcard Detection" application opened up a little window with a "play test sound" button, which i clicked, and lo and behold, the sounds *eventually* started (after about 20 seconds of silence).
i don't really know what caused this to fix itself but it is very weird.
i don't know how to "permanently fix this" so that it doesn't mess itself up again, but at least this solution is now posted online. i hope it's useful to others who have similar problems with sound cards from ensoniq on fedora core 2.
cheers,
laughzilla