How can I get PlayOnLinux's wine config to detect my audio device?

Question

This is really bugging me, I've been all over the internet for answers but can't seem to find out how to get this to work...
I have Steam installed under PoL (PlayOnLinux) using wine 1.5.10 internally and I just can't seem to get any sound in my games. When I go to PoL's 'wine' configuration options and select 'configure wine' then click on the 'audio' tab of the winecfg that comes up it says "Selected driver: (None)" and there's no hardware detected!
I've heard that this might be a pulseaudio issue and that I should run it using ALSA instead, only I don't know how to do this. Plus I'm running the Cinnamon desktop so I get a load of gnome dependencies some of which are tied to pulseaudio (e.g. gnome-settings-daemon) and I don't know if I can safely remove these without borking my DE (and without ending up in dependency hell).
Here's the console output from PoL:
$ playonlinux
[main] Message: PlayOnLinux (4.1.8) is starting
[clean_tmp] Message: Cleaning temp directory
[Check_OpenGL] Message: 32bits direct rendering is enabled
[Check_OpenGL] Message: 64bits direct rendering is enabled
[main] Message: Filesystem is compatible
(python2:30355): Gtk-CRITICAL **: IA__gtk_widget_get_direction: assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed
[install_plugins] Message: Checking plug-in: Capture...
[install_plugins] Message: Checking plug-in: ScreenCap...
[maj_check] Message: List is up to date
[install_plugins] Message: Checking plug-in: PlayOnLinux Vault...
/usr/share/playonlinux/bash/startup_after_server: line 38: [: : integer expression expected
/usr/share/playonlinux/bash/startup_after_server: line 38: [: : integer expression expected
[POL_SetupWindow_Init] Message: Creating new window for pid 30801
(python2:30355): Gtk-CRITICAL **: IA__gtk_widget_get_direction: assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed
(python2:30355): Gtk-CRITICAL **: IA__gtk_widget_get_direction: assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed
[POL_SetupWindow_Close] Message: Closing window for pid 30801
[POL_Wine] Message: Running wine- winecfg (Working directory : /home/shodan/.PlayOnLinux)
[POL_Wine] Message: Notice: PlayOnLinux deliberately disables winemenubuilder. See http://www.playonlinux.com/fr/page-26-Winemenubuilder.html
err:module:load_builtin_dll failed to load .so lib for builtin L"winealsa.drv": libasound.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
err:mmdevapi:DllGetClassObject Driver initialization failed
err:ole:apartment_getclassobject DllGetClassObject returned error 0x80004005
err:ole:CoGetClassObject no class object {bcde0395-e52f-467c-8e3d-c4579291692e} could be created for context 0x1
err:ole:CoInitializeEx Attempt to change threading model of this apartment from multi-threaded to apartment threaded
err:module:load_builtin_dll failed to load .so lib for builtin L"winealsa.drv": libasound.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
err:mmdevapi:DllGetClassObject Driver initialization failed
err:ole:apartment_getclassobject DllGetClassObject returned error 0x80004005
err:ole:CoGetClassObject no class object {bcde0395-e52f-467c-8e3d-c4579291692e} could be created for context 0x1
[POL_Wine] Message: Wine return: 0
I found something on WineHQ's support forum about mmdevapi (which I think is a DLL file) which was somehow being automatically disabled by WineTricks and needed to be re-enabled, only it didn't say how plus I'm not using WineTricks (unless PoL uses it in the background or something?).
The odd thing is that this all worked fine on my old laptop (before it died), but the really annoying thing is that my old laptop wasn't up to playing more than some basic indie games, no serious FPS or Racing sims, but now I've got a brand new desktop (core i7, HD7870 etc. -- "proper job"!) that's powerful enough to play high-spec games I can't get any audio!
Does anyone please know how I can have sound enabled in Wine through PlayOnLinux?

Answer 1

@akspecs -- Yes I was rapidly coming to the same conclusion, thanks.
Besides, I figured I ought to do it properly and learn how to actually configure and use WINE as it should be, from the command line!
In the meantime however I'd actually mitigated this problem by committing the ultimate sin -- I installed Windows natively in it's own partition and set up a dual-boot (bring on Steam for Linux so I can remove this evil!).
It's not even really a 'classic' dual-boot because with my EFI / UEFI mainboard (once I'd got the Windows DVD to play nice) it meant no need to hassle with boot chaining in grub / syslinux etc. Now I have 2 'native' EFI boot options (stored in my mainboard's NVRAM) it's just a case of hitting the button to bring up the boot-menu during POST, then selecting which OS I want to boot -- Arch by default of course!