asio (asio4all w/foobar2000) does bypass the kmixer and is bitperfect/bit-accurate/bit transparent
of course, you aways need a soundcard up to the task
ASIO is an early implementation of what wasapi offers for vista/win 7 users - and yes it reduces the latency.
do the wdm drivers actually work correctly now? I'm not certain I understand exactly what you mean..but Ill ramble some thoughts
The main issue now with a HTPC depends on how 'pure' you demand the signal.
I wish there was an option in Foobar (and a capable soundcard) to send flac direct/unconverted/native to my receiver. (when you hit play it converts .flac to PCM).
Currently there are only a couple HDMI HD Video/Sound cards that can send native Dolby TrueHD & DTS-HD - most convert each stream/channel to PCM.
not a big deal, but some audiophiles would prefer their expensive amp/receiver DAC to handle
all the work and the computer to only serve the data.
the idea here is when you play .flac > the receiver registers FLAC and when you play Dolby TrueHD > the receiver registers TrueHD/DTS-HD.
In most common scenarios (today) a receiver will register PCM no matter what codec you start with ..cause well, the computer converted the original source. its still lossless but I agree with the argument that a native signal would be optimum.
..I'm not an authoritative expert in this field, mr. Five
just sharing/regurgitating the hours of white papers read & what I know from hands on experience.
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