what's the best approach to fix this? alsamixer pulsemixer or is some upstart configuration needed?
Posting the relevant part of lspci -vvvv never hurts. Myself I like inxi -A
pulseaudio just went from 0.80 to 0.90 in testing. In sid(uction) for some installing the recommend pulseaudio-module-udev helped a few. I cannot remember if Sparky automatically installs recommends. Check to see which version of pulseaudio you have.
Musca's reply in http://forum.siduction.org/index.php?topic=6277.msg51672#msg51672 is elegant. But only if you are lacking pulseaudio-module-udev. Also a similar topic in German on Siduction with similar concerns. http://forum.siduction.org/index.php?topic=6275.msg51657#msg51657
Myself - when things flip from digital to analog or vice versa or output jacks stop working - for first debug I go with pavucontrol. Then to alsamixer.