Are you in the 'audio' group? You didn't show the permissions before changing them, but here is what I have:
$ ls -al /dev/snd/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 380 Nov 7 12:28 .
drwxr-xr-x 19 root root 3660 Nov 7 12:28 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 80 Nov 7 12:28 by-path
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 15 Nov 7 12:28 controlC0
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 10 Nov 7 12:28 controlC1
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 14 Nov 7 12:28 hwC0D0
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 6 Nov 7 12:28 hwC1D0
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 7 Nov 7 12:28 hwC1D1
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 8 Nov 7 12:28 hwC1D2
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 9 Nov 7 12:28 hwC1D3
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 12 Nov 7 12:28 pcmC0D0c
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 11 Nov 7 12:28 pcmC0D0p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 13 Nov 7 12:28 pcmC0D2c
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 2 Nov 7 12:28 pcmC1D3p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 3 Nov 7 12:28 pcmC1D7p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 4 Nov 7 12:28 pcmC1D8p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 5 Nov 7 12:28 pcmC1D9p
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 1 Nov 7 12:28 seq
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 33 Nov 7 12:28 timer
It's still working for me although perhaps you are using gremlins.