USB DAC not working properly in 14.2/-current, but working fine in Slackware Live

I was running Slackware 14.2 previously, but despite varying degrees of investigation there I could not determine why my USB DAC would not output audio at the default 44.1kHz sample rate while the other sound outputs on my system worked without any issues. Further investigation in Ubuntu Live and then Slackware Live both revealed the USB DAC to be working properly without making any changes. I then made the decision to update my system to -current hoping this would solve the issue... but nope, no luck! I even created a test user and logged into X, but still no sound! any ideas why this is happening? I have not modified anything related to pulseaudio in /etc