No such thing as a stupid question in this business.
That being said, as far as OS's, yes I've had several installed and recently, prior to installing Solaris, I was running Windows 10, and 7 before that with a dual boot running Ultimate Edition 4.6 Gamers Edition and NEVER had any sort of problem with sound. I tried loading the live DVD many times trying to access many sound settings, web pages, and videos without luck. I'm not so sure it's a driver related issue on the sound blaster side (or the other card I tried), or rather it may be Solaris has a bug reading the drivers properly, hence my thoughts that there's a way to fix it. I say that because the output says the hardware is found and drivers are loaded without errors. However, I need to add this disclaimer: I'm not a Solaris expert, so, there's a decent chance I'm misinterpreting the output.
I did manage to get SOX installed, unfortunately I know nothing about SOX.
WiseCracker, can you tell me where to start? i.e command and syntax regarding this audio application; I'm not sure what kind of output you'd be looking for.
Thanks guys for your help and time.
-Pete