Problem:
host's sound card works, but only if the VNC user is *also* logged into the computer locally.
This isn't a VNC issue, it's a permissions issue.
VNC mailing list about that problem: here
You want to check out:
man 5 console.perms
By default Red Hat (an probably other distros, but I'm not sure) is set to
give the user logging into the console certain permissions to devices,
then revert back to a default when the user logs out. These default
settings can be changed in the /etc/security/console.perms file.
I took the easy way out. I chmod 666'ed all of the devices listed as