John
I use WDM when ever possible.

Hi John. OT... would you mind, perhaps in another thread,
expanding on why you prefer WDM?
I know that all the empirical info points to asio
being best, and I use it, but is there a reason beyond the ability
to use multiple interfaces that you like it?
Sometimes,(maybe another placebo) I swear
WDM runs a little smoother(less glitchy?) on my system.
Thanks,
Mel

Vastman
There is a HUGE amount of confirmation and expectation bias operating within each human brain... 
There is also a lot of unique aspects to each daw, like Sonar's PC...
Isolating all the values/normalizing them/double blind study is all that is valid.
The rest of the comments are rubbish

This.

Sanderxpander

Vastman
There is a HUGE amount of confirmation and expectation bias operating within each human brain... 
There is also a lot of unique aspects to each daw, like Sonar's PC...
Isolating all the values/normalizing them/double blind study is all that is valid.
The rest of the comments are rubbish

This.

Sorry but when i finish a job with Sonar i have in front of me a client or label's A/R not a scientist😆
best

tenfoot
 
This is almost certainly a case of perceived rather than actual difference - a combination of a couple of cognitive biases such as confirmation bias combined with the contrast effect. It is worth reading up on how our brains work when we think we are making critical judgements. The shortcuts we take are called heuristics and they are truly fascinating. Heres a list if you are keen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
 
A blind study is really the only way to know for sure. The vast majority of credible blind studies done in the field of audio are revealing as to how prone to errors of judgement we are. Good examples are the  comparison of cheap vs expensive speaker cables (which not that surprisingly  found that no one could hear any difference greater than chance) and MP3 vs uncompressed audio, which more surprisingly also found that at higher bit rates there is no perceivable difference. The results of a study at Mcgill University
 
http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~hockman/documents/Pras_presentation2009.pdf
 
Brando is right - it is something far more subjective. In short, we love Sonar so it sounds better:)

Normally I would totally agree with this. except in this case I was not trying to hear a difference at all. It was the fact that I did that was why I opened it up in Sonar to see if it was the mix that sounded bad. I have stated without qualification this was not a scientific test in fact there was no test at all.
 
I have been doing this for nearly thirty years or so. I know how easy it is to be mistaken when one expects a difference. Before I was doing recording I was into high quality audio.
 
If you haven't read the whole thread you wont know all of what I have said in it.
 
One can doubt what I am saying. That would be a fair and safe thing to do. In this case it would also be wrong. I have no explanation for this.      

OldTimerNewComer

John
I use WDM when ever possible.

Hi John. OT... would you mind, perhaps in another thread,
expanding on why you prefer WDM?
I know that all the empirical info points to asio
being best, and I use it, but is there a reason beyond the ability
to use multiple interfaces that you like it?
Sometimes,(maybe another placebo) I swear
WDM runs a little smoother(less glitchy?) on my system.
Thanks,
Mel

Its really simple.  In my setup ASIO and WDM sound and perform the same. I choose WDM for convenience.   

In Samplitude there appears to be different audio engines.
 
Below is from the Samplitude X2 Pro manual.
 
Hybrid Engine and Economy Tracks
Very small audio buffers ("Low latency" mode) increase the CPU strain of the
playback engine. For optimal use of the PC resources, we recommend using the mixer
tracks in "Low latency" mode only. This includes:
• Monitor tracks
• Tracks with VSTis
Tracks that play hard disk content (MIDI or audio files) may be taken out of "Low
latency" mode in the Hybrid Engine by assigning the "Economy" property to them.
These tracks will then use the play engine's buffer (VIP buffer size).


I have tried to figure out what all this actually means but I'm still looking.

John

OldTimerNewComer

John
I use WDM when ever possible.

Hi John. OT... would you mind, perhaps in another thread,
expanding on why you prefer WDM?
I know that all the empirical info points to asio
being best, and I use it, but is there a reason beyond the ability
to use multiple interfaces that you like it?
Sometimes,(maybe another placebo) I swear
WDM runs a little smoother(less glitchy?) on my system.
Thanks,
Mel

Its really simple.  In my setup ASIO and WDM sound and perform the same. I choose WDM for convenience.   

ok, thank you.
Me too.
 
Mel

I'll be interested to hear how this plays out. I would normally first doubt your perception but since you say you are aware of this effect and it was very clear beyond this, my guess goes towards some unintended setting. I have a really really hard time believing that DAWs would have a different sound from regular stereo WAV playback. Even the voodoo differences people normally talk about (DAW X sounds better than Y) tend to focus on things like summing.

ASIO bypasses MS code layers allowing the driver manufacturer to write their own stack instead to access the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) or even bypass it. It's a way different beast to WDM.
If your WDM driver performs better you are most likely comparing to a badly written ASIO driver.
If you check the Windows 10 thread, MS confirms ASIO will still be the best experience for DAW's, even though it originally came from Steinberg and not them! 

Doktor Avalanche
ASIO bypasses MS code layers allowing the driver manufacturer to write their own stack instead to access the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) or even bypass it. It's a way different beast to WDM.
If your WDM driver performs better you are most likely comparing to a badly written ASIO driver.
If you check the Windows 10 thread, MS confirms ASIO will still be the best experience for DAW's, even though it originally came from Steinberg and not them! 

No, I'm saying they perform the same to me. I run Windows 8.1.