Wasapi driver broken in SONAR 2016-11 persists in 2016-12 Early Release

Hi everyone.
I have been using Wasapi with Sonar on my X32 whilst using the playlst for some time with great success. It solved a glitching issue whilst loading  songs that was being caused by the asio driver. With the latest update I seem to be having an issue with the sound quality degrading. I have replicated this on 2 different systems with 2 different X32 mixers. It occurs in both wasapi exclusive and wasapi shared mode, irrespective of buffer settings.  The most consistent way to replicate this is to start a playlst and leave it playing uninterrupted.  After 4 or 5 songs the sound quality suddenly deteriorates (crackling, distored, slows down, usually at the start of a song - not subtle!). Stopping and restarting the playlist restores the sound, but it will hapoen again a few songs later. 
 
These projects are around 20 - 30 tracks each, audio + fx and midi only (no vst instruments). I am using multiple outputs from the PC to the X32 (14 stereo), in case that is significant.
 
I rolled back to 2016-10 and wasapi mode with the playlist again functions perfectly (ran continously for 100+songs without issue) so whatever the problem it seems to have appeared with the wasapi changes this month.
 
I posted an early release problem report in the appropriate forum,  but just wondered if anyone else was able to replicate this or had any suggestions as to a solution. I seem to have run out of things to try!
 
Thanks!

Just did a loopback test using the new SPLAT and WASAPI.     ASIO still wins the timing test. My Tascam drops out all the time using WASAPI. 
 

Cactus Music
Just did a loopback test using the new SPLAT and WASAPI.     ASIO still wins the timing test. My Tascam drops out all the time using WASAPI. 
 

Hey Johnny. 
 
Results vary wildly from manufacturer to manufacturer. It is also a case of what you are actually using the system for. As I mentioned, my x32's are used exclusively for live playback/performance using the playlist. On my system wasapi is world's ahead of the asio driver for this particular purpose, and the recording timing is a moot  point. Under asio,  as each song begins to play and the upcoming song loads, playback glitches. Running wasapi, it is absolutely seamless and playback continues smoothy no matter what you do, including changing the next song loading. Pretty impressive. At least it was until it broke this month. 
 
 

I'm just showing people that they need to be aware of this issue with any driver other than ASIO. I would have used my on board for the ASIO test if it supported it. And the point of the test was to show results using a common on board set up. It's not terrible but anyone doing overdubbing needs to make sure they do this test first and adjust the manual offset, or just have sloppy timing. 
 
Yes tenfoot I realize what your doing and the loopback does have nothing to do with live recording. I use WDM mode to record my band live as it gives me 2 more channels from the Yamaha mixers USB interface. 
 
For some reason my Tascam drops out in WASAPI mode so I could not test it. 

Just tested 2016-12 and the problem persists. The wasapi 'improvements' weren't so fabulous on this end. As far as I can tell what was a perfectly functional wasapi mode was broken in the 2016-11 update that introduced exclusive mode.  2016-09 (when restored from a disc image) continues to work perfectly. Perhaps reinventing the wheel isn't such a great idea:)
 
It seems the monthly updates have become increasingly problematic of late.
 
<sighs>

Sanderxpander
Perhaps there could be a "legacy wasapi" option. I haven't had much luck with the new mode and my laptop built-in sound either, but it wasn't worse than the old one.

A legacy mode would be brilliant Sanderxpander. The 'shared mode' of the current release doesn't work at all with my interfaces. I presumed it would be the same as the old wasapi mode, but it is not. 

FWIW, I was experimenting with WASAPI Exclusive mode and found that enabling 'Allow Arm Changes During Playback/Recording' caused bad distortion with buffer settings under 9ms. With this option disabled, playback is good all the way down to the minimum 3ms buffer.

I can't hep but think there is a little bit of the 'emperors new clothes' going on with this wasapi release. It has always been there and worked well with windows 10. It just seems very few had tried it! With the 2016-11 release of 'exclusive mode', it now works with less devices. Hmmm.