Muffled/grinding and delayed audio playback in Sonar X1

Hi, I'm a newbie to computer recording (I own a VS1680 and wanted to upgrade) and I'm having some big problems with the audio playback in Sonar X1.

I have a new computer with Windows 7 64 bit, AMD Phenom II 2.93 ghz, Sonar X1 and a Zoom R24 for an interface. Everything is installed in the 64 bit version including the drivers. After some time getting the R24 and Sonar to finally work together, I wanted to test out recording a track. I connected everything I needed and set my levels. Everything sounds great through the monitors (through the interface and computer) and everything is set in Sonar. I recorded a guitar track and it shows the track recording just fine, and the wave format looks good, but when I play back the track there is a huge delay when it starts- even though it shows it should be playing when the wave starts on the screen and it sounds horrible, can't even tell it's a guitar. Sounds more like a chainsaw cutting a tree down..

Can somebody please help me??? I'm getting frustrated- how can I fix it???

Thanks for the quick reply.

Yes, The Zoom is set as both Record and Playback timing Master and I can't see that the integrated soundchip is selected anywhere. I have all sample rates selected as 44.1 and 24 bit so I could get get the R24's driver to work without errors with Sonar- that was my first problem with it (I can't seem to select any lower bit on the R24, so I had to go with 24 bit on all). Is that ok?

One other thing, I have to select the WDM/KS in the Driver Mode for it to use the R24 as an audio interface also. ASIO4ALL won't work with the R24 (greyed out).