You do not want the emu10k1 module loaded at all it will interfere with the alsa. If you have an onboard sound card then check to make sure that you have disabled it in the BIOS then try the alsa. You can also check in the /etc/modutils/alsa (it may be alsa1 in knoppix IIRC) and see if the settings are similar to this.

Code:
 >$ cat /etc/modutils/alsa
### DEBCONF MAGIC
# This file was automatically generated by alsa-base's debconf stuff

alias char-major-116 snd
alias char-major-14 soundcore

options snd major=116 cards_limit=4

alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/dsp* snd-pcm-oss

alias snd-card-0 snd-emu10k1

alias snd-slot-0 snd-card-0
alias sound-slot-0 snd-slot-0
If you use lsmod then you should see similar to this when the alsa is in use.

Code:
>$ lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
snd_pcm_oss            48516  0
snd_mixer_oss          15936  2 snd_pcm_oss
nvidia               2070376  12
apm                    15268  2
snd_emu10k1            63172  1
snd_rawmidi            19648  1 snd_emu10k1
snd_pcm                83520  2 snd_pcm_oss,snd_emu10k1
snd_timer              20928  1 snd_pcm
snd_seq_device          6596  2 snd_emu10k1,snd_rawmidi
snd_ac97_codec         54724  1 snd_emu10k1
snd_page_alloc          9540  2 snd_emu10k1,snd_pcm
snd_util_mem            3456  1 snd_emu10k1
snd_hwdep               7296  1 snd_emu10k1
snd                    46468  10 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_emu10k1,snd_rawmidi,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_seq_device,snd_ac97_codec,snd_util_mem,snd_hwdep

[snip ..]

And lspci -v as root should show similar to this.

Code:
HappyTux:/home/stephen# lspci -v
[snip...]

00:0f.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 05)
        Subsystem: Creative Labs CT4850 SBLive! Value
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 10
        I/O ports at c400 [size=32]
        Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1

00:0f.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Live! MIDI/Game Port (rev 05)
        Subsystem: Creative Labs Gameport Joystick
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64
        I/O ports at dc00 [size=8]
        Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1

[snip... ]
And have you gone into the Control Center in KDE and then Sound & Multimedia -> Sound System -> Hardware tab and changed the setting from Autodetect to ALSA then applied the changes the Autodetect seems not to work for me.