Hello
I'm a total newbie to home studio production but am working hard to get up to speed.
Here's the current question that is stumping me.
 
I am using Samson GT Studio monitors which have an audio interface built in and hook up to my computer with a USB connection.
As long as I choose MME 32 bit in Sonar X3 as my driver mode I am able to record to the microphone hooked to the Samson hardware and also hear playback through these speakers. 
 
However, when I attempt to switch to ASIO mode as suggested in the cakewalk documentation,  I get the message in Sonar X3 as follows: "There are no audio devices for the current driver model on your system.  Please go to Preferences/Audio/Play and Record and choose a different driver mode.
Also am seeing the message : "These outputs will remain silent until reassigned to an available output:  Missing Devices: Speakers (Samson Studio GT) Available Devices: Samson GT.
 
When I go back to the MME 32 bit setting, Sonar X3 runs the Wave profiler and recognizes/activates the Samson audio interface/monitors.  Doesn't do this, obviously, when I choose ASIO
 
I've looked at the documentation for samson and they claim that they handle ASIO and that if there is any problem, I don't need to download a driver from them but the problem needs to be addressed via my DAW software.
 
Any suggestions on things I could try or might be doing wrong?  
 
Much advanced thanks for any assistance.
 
 

Is there a manual? If so, does it mention anything about installing audio drivers?

yah there's a manual but it doesn't have anything about installing SAMSON audio drivers and there don't appear to be any downloads on offer at their website.  It may be this is an issue I have to take up with the hardware company but I thought maybe there was a setting I had wrong in Sonar X3 since I'm such a novice.
 
The manual says it supports ASIO through the WDM interface, by the way, so I tried switching to WDM in Sonar X3 but am getting the very same results.

I am able to playback and record if I set the driver to WASAPI. May I assume this is a better alternative than MME 32 Bit?  And does anyone know of other settings I would need to change in Preferences to make this work smoothly?
 

WASAPI is far superior to MME in terms of speed. It is Microsoft's attempt to provide an easy access to low level streaming, and should be a good second choice if you cannot get ASIO to work. 
 
http://promos.chooch.us/archives/479
 
Actually the manual for this device says that you will need to install ASIO4All in order to get it to perform as ASIO. That is a wrapper that translates commands so that software that expects to find an ASIO driver will be able to communicate, but it is not the same as native ASIO support. It appears that the native driver for the device is WDM. I find no mention of WASAPI in the manual, and the drivers are supposed to be installed automatically. That means that either, the device firmware contains its own driver that will install when it is connected, or that Windows Update will supply the driver automatically from the Windows servers. 
 

Thanks very much for the input from you guys.  Now I'll have to do some online research and see what other settings I might want to alter now that I've made this driver switch.  For example, in x3 documentation it suggests that if you change to ASIO, you also change the Playback and Record Buffer size to 512. (Preferences/Audio/Synch & Caching/Set Playback I/O Buffer Size).  So I'm wondering about settings if I use the best thing available to me apparently with my cheapo monitor/audio interface starter kit, WASAPI.
 
I'm also kind of confused about sound cards in my computer.  From what I'm reading it seems that the audio interface, in my case, the Samson GT Studio Monitors with USB, becomes the sound card, bypassing the sound card in my computer.  Is this not correct?
 
I'm running a year old Acer Aspire laptop with 4 GB  and Windows 8.  

Yup - your Samson would become your audio interface, if that's what you tell Sonar to use.
 
Realistically, you will very likely find that your Audio Interface is not really going to be powerful enough to give you performance with the analog/digital conversions needed for any but fairly basic Sonar projects.
 
That being said, since you already DO have it - I would suggest you either try to run with the WASAPI driver mode, OR temporarily download and try out using ASIO4ALL.
 
PLEASE NOTE - for many many folks, ASIO4ALL is a plague, BUT for some it works fine, and it may serve you until you get to where you can pick up a better grade of audio interface.  There are some good ones for around $150 these days.  They take on the burden of converting analog to digital and vice versa, freeing up the CPU to do more of other things, and when configured properly, a decent audio interface can give you years of good smooth sound.
 
If you DO end up using ASIO4ALL, and then later pick up a better audio interface, then I would recommend at that point that you completely eradicate ASIO4ALL, as it often interferes with other things just by being installed.
 
Another thing you may find is that since you are using a laptop, you likely have a WiFi adapter, and those can generate massive DPC Latency spikes that can really goof up your streaming audio performance.  Many folks with WiFi will take a moment right before launching Sonar to disable (in Windows Device Manager) or turn off (sometimes there is a switch on the laptop chassis somewhere or a function key) the WiFi.  Then you would launch Sonar, and after finishing your Sonar session, go back and enable the WiFi again or turn it back on. 
 
You may also find 4 GB of memory to be really not enough for running projects that have a lot of plugins - but you will be able to gauge that once you are able to get in and get things rolling. :)
 
Good luck with it all - lots to learn, but there are lots of videos out there for free, as well as commercially prepared ones, and of course the forums, and good books, and the documentation, so have a BLAST.
 
Bob Bone
 

Yes, I can see I'm probably going to need some hardware upgrades once I get up and running.
 But I'm hoping what I already have will get me through the learning curve with vocals and maybe 4 or 5 midi tracks.  At which point I'll begin to have a better idea of improvements I'll need to make.
 
 So far I really like Sonar X3 Professional a lot. I can already see very exciting potential and it looks to be very thoughtfully organized.
 
I found the Groove 3 paid videos to be extremely useful for very patiently explaining all the basics very very well.  And the big fat Sonar 3 Power manual  by Scott Garrigus  seems best for looking up specific reference questions. Although I wouldn't have wanted to start out with that as a rank beginner.  
 
Neither product addressed my concerns here, however, so thanks again to all for your input.
 
I will turn off my wifi as soon as I start noticing issues.  Thanks for that tip as well.
 
Today my Yamaha YPG-235 keyboard comes.  Fingers crossed it will be recognized by sonar as a midi controller once I plug it into the computer and set options correctly.  I fear I will be back with more questions about issues with this.  Let's hope not.  But if so, I'll start a new topic on that.

About upgrading the hardware later:
I doubt the Samson USB-interface/monitors will work well with any other external audio interface. My guess is you'll need new monitors with the new interface, when the time comes. Maybe I'm wrong. In general, IMO, it seems all these combinations -  a microphone, a guitar amp or monitors and an interface in one package - only give you headaches in DAW work.

!00% to what Bob has said and other. ASIO4all scares me but it is the best solution for you.
You may still have timing and dropout issues because Sonar is very fussy about drivers. Other DAW software might fare better. Try the demos. 
 
I'm wondering if and when you do get a proper audio interface if those XLR inputs on the front could be used for standard audio playback. In other words, your audio interfaces outputs might drive the speakers as stand alone units. At least you could use them as monitors in a normal way.