ALSA mixer does not unmute the volume

[Bob Alexander <bob@ngi.it>]

Each time I reboot and login as bob I must manually launch alsamixer and 
press M to unmute the main volume.

Why doesn't this get "remembered" across reboots ?

Using sid on 2.6.9 custom compiled kernel.

TIA,
Bob

ii  alsa-base      1.0.7-2        ALSA driver configuration files
ii  alsa-oss       1.0.7-1        ALSA OSS-compatibility application wrapper
ii  alsa-utils     1.0.7-2        ALSA utilities
ii  gnome-alsamixe 0.9.6-1        ALSA sound mixer for GNOME