My USB speakers seem to have some buggy firmware in that the device name has been corrupted with some binary. At first I thought it was unicode, but uni2ascii said overwise. Since I need to be able to type the name into config files I had to rename the device using udev.
First we need to fine the name of the device.
Run udevadm monitor --kernel --subsystem-match=sound
Unplug and re-plug in the DAC, this results in:
KERNEL[1585.716702] remove /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.0/usb4/4-5/4-5:1.0/sound/card1/controlC1 (sound)
KERNEL[1585.716973] remove /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.0/usb4/4-5/4-5:1.0/sound/card1/pcmC1D0p (sound)
KERNEL[1585.717031] remove /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.0/usb4/4-5/4-5:1.0/sound/card1 (sound)
KERNEL[1589.732577] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.0/usb4/4-5/4-5:1.0/sound/card1 (sound)
KERNEL[1589.732978] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.0/usb4/4-5/4-5:1.0/sound/card1/pcmC1D0p (sound)
KERNEL[1589.733183] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.0/usb4/4-5/4-5:1.0/sound/card1/controlC1 (sound)
KERNEL[1590.091680] change /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.0/usb4/4-5/4-5:1.0/sound/card1 (sound)
Create a new udev rule /lib/udev/rules.d/85-my_usb-audio.rules
SUBSYSTEM!="sound", GOTO="my_usb_audio_end"
ACTION!="add", GOTO="my_usb_audio_end"
DEVPATH=="/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.0/usb4/4-5/4-5:1.0/sound/card?", ATTR{id}="MyDAC"
LABEL="my_usb_audio_end"
note the question mark on /card? so that it doesn't matter which number the OS uses. ATTR{id} is the name I want call my DAC.
Reboot and enjoy! Test it works by listing the audio devices with aplay -L