Thanks, Chris -- your suggestion took care of the problem.
I had not needed to turn muting off in previous NetBSD installs, 
so this got me unawares.  Everything is now fine.

Best,

Doug




> 
> The ESS Maestro-2 audio controller in my Dell Inspiron 7000 
> seems not to be working under 1.5.2 (GENERIC_LAPTOP).
> 
> audioctl and mixerctl commands are accepted, but there is no
> sound when xcdplayer is run.
> 
> Can anyone steer me to a working sound system?  Everything else
> seems to be fine; the sound system works under Suse 7.1.

Have you tried something like:

/usr/bin/mixerctl -w inputs.cd.mute=off

best wishes,
-- 
Chris
--