Yeah... even when I do

dd if=file.wav of=/dev/audio obs=4608

I don't get any sound at all. So I'm thinking it has something to do with the Sound Overlay kernel which is currently installed on my Empeg. I'm going to try to back that out and see if I am still getting silent sound output. I just remembered this morning that I had installed that kernel patch. Not sure if that's the problem..

Assuming the WAV file isn't silence, I should get sound output when I run that dd command, right? There's no ioctl's I have to call to change the volume or select PCM source, are there?