esd not starting with Edirol UA-5 in advanced(24bit) mode

[David Meier]

I have got a Edirol UA-5 USB sound device. It can work in two modes: the 
"normal" 16bit /44.1 or 48kHz mode and the "advanced" mode with 24bits and up 
to 96kHz. The latter is supported by ALSA only, while the "normal" mode also 
works with OSS. The module is the standard snd-usb-audio.

Now at startup esd tries a number of modes, all 8 or 16bit with various 
samplerates. With the UA5 being in advanced mode, none of these fits. so esd 
refuses to start, saying it can not find a suitable device. I do not know 
which driver OSS uses by default, maybe it is OSS? Applications able to use 
direct ALSA output work without problems (I tried GXine), so the problem 
clearly seems to be on the esd side. 

Any idea how to tell esd to either try the right modes or use the right sound 
system? I only found an option to force 8bit mode in the manpage.