Lately a few people have posted who have been unable to get Sonar to run using the supplied ASIO drivers for what ever interface they are using. A common solution offered here is to use the WDM/KS driver. 
It is then stated that this is OK and there is no reason not to use this driver other than latency performance.  SO one may ask... what is the difference here? 

Bottom line is it depends. ( quote mr Roseberry 2009)
The answer is, "It depends..."           Some audio interfaces have a better ASIO driver:  RME, Emu     Some audio interfaces have a better WDM/KS driver:  Dakota, DSP Factory     Some audio interfaces have good WDM/KS and ASIO drivers:  MOTU, M-Audio, Echo 



a little googling turned up this on  http://www.vsplanet.com and 

The important thing with WDM/KS is the "KS" bit - Kernal Streaming - which allows a program like Sonar to get fast access to the interface - which is what ASIO also does. But, ASIO is NOT a native Windows program interface, it's an extra standard from Steinberg. WDM is Windows native and even an on-board soundchip should support KS well enough.
 Here's some Pros for WDM/KS... The host can adjust the latency - you don't have to go into the driver control panel. Different WDM drivers from different makes of interfaces can be used to get more channels. With ASIO, only one driver can be used at a time. Low latency is available even with cheap sound hardware that has no ASIO driver.

 And the Cons... WDM/KS cannot work if something else is already using the WDM driver - Some Mediaplayers and Codecs keep the driver in use even when they are not open! This is a common occurence, especially with the MediaPlayer on XP install discs. Once Kernal Streaming is in use, nothing else can use the WDM driver. Sonar has an option to release the driver when it's not running so you can temporarily use some other audio program that needs the audio hardware without first closing Sonar. 

Where's Ron Kuper when you need him? Oh, here he is: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ronkuper

Sorry to the 14 people who read the original post with bad info from a bad source ( Wikipedia ) 

So this is why even asio4all works better for some people as it is a WDM/KS driver in sheep's clothing. 

So there you go, use either one without regrets or worries. 

Someday somebody will write the perfect driver for us. 

So another angle I'm looking into is the statement made about better latency performance under ASIO, turns out this can also be a bit of a myth.
http://forum.cakewalk.com...mpage=1&print=true

If your application offers both ASIO and WDM/KS driver options, the final choice is best made after practical tests, as relative performance may depend on the quality of each driver and may vary between manufacturers and models. I've found similar performance from both driver options with most review interfaces, although occasionally one driver format will manage lower latency than the other, or have a lower processor overhead. For instance, some Echo interface users running Sonarfind that WDM/KS works better than ASIO." 

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Cactus Music


Sorry to the 14 people who read the original post with bad info from a bad source ( Wikipedia ) 

So this is why even asio4all works better for some people as it is a WDM/KS driver in sheep's clothing. 

So there you go, use either one without regrets or worries. 

Someday somebody will write the perfect driver for us. 

for those who do not like asio4all there is also this one 


http://www.asio2ks.de/


This is a kernal streaming ASIO driver but it is made by someone else. WDM (Windows Driver Model) is not the best for recording with. all my hardware works the best with ASIO. The only problem is the limitation of one hardware device at a time, but that is what asio4all or asio2ks is suppose to do. It is suppose to allow more then 1 audio interface using the kernal streaming.


In the past I had problems with hardware working with ASIO. I discovered that the problem was due to the drivers released by the hardware manufacture. Not ASIO! After a while a fix was released, but by that time I had already moved on to something else. 

So I'm going to go run the Centrance RTL test and see what happens in each mode. Hope Sonar don't toss a fit,,, hmm, I'll use Cubase..just to be sure. 

Myth-busters here I go.