Further from the user...
I had a couple of exchanges with Piero today. Even with the non-R2 version of squeezelite, I was getting the same failure case. On the console, I was seeing a very peculiar error:
USB 1-1.2.3: clock source 40 is not valid, cannot use
Piero suggested I play around with squeezelite settings to limit the rates, etc. Then I had a sudden brain wave. Since my Zenith SE's built in player is also squeezelite (except it boots into a different Linux), I mounted the boot ssd and poked around. I finally discovered they use the following options with squeezelite:
-n-s localhost -m ,mac address. -o hw:CARD=Interface -a 16:4:: -D
I duplicated these settings and voila! It now works. I think the key is the -a and the -D setting.
Wow, that was not obvious!! But I am happy.