Unable to adjust balance via alsa

[PieEater]

What do you mean by "changes are ignored" ?
Can you make audible changes, but these are lost on subsequent reboots, or are there no audible results when making adjustments ?

From a quick look your DAC is USB compliant via the xmos chip so should work.

When you run 'alsamixer' what card-name  do you select for adjustment ?

There are no audible results when making changes !! I can reduce all volume levels down to zero and still nothing changes on my music playback. I've tried on a fresh install of Moode in case any custom settings were affecting it.