>My next issue is that the sound level is amazingly low.  I have the hardware 
>pot turned right up as well as "inputs.cd=255,255" and 
>"outputs.master=255,255" but it is barely listenable.  Certainly no way to 
>play R&R.

I had a machine doing this, turned out to be a grounding problem in my setup.
I would experiment with volume under Windows, if that's feasible; it might
help isolate the problem.

-s