I don't think my problem is a hardware connection issue, other apps such as Konqueror's sidebar media player can play from the CD just fine, only xmms has problems. It seems to be playing; the graphic symbol 'thingy' (love those hitech terms) looks like it is playing but the output is going ??? ie no sound from the speakers.

R Garden: apt-get kdemultimedia-kio-plugins (I think that is the correct package name, browse the applictions list with kapackge to be sure) to get the audiocd protocol for konqueror.