WASAPI exclusive yes, that's the only way on Vista/7 apparently...because these two OS force you set a fixed sample rate in the system audio config...anyway that's what a friend of mine's tests seemed to prove.
since then he's sold his HD2 Advance DE and got the Forte 7.1 because he needed a PCI-E card anyway, and only ASIO seems to be bit-matched...
and btw the musiland does automatically bitmatched DS/KS/ASIO up to 32/192, it's good that not every driver engineer is brain damaged in this world(unlike Creative/C-Media and Asux
)
there's also some CMI8768 GPL drivers from dogbert that are fully bit-matched/automatically bit-perfect in any mode(he's the bit-perfect god!)...but I've only found the Auzen X-Raider 7.1 running this DSP, it's got swappable op-amps too...but it's grossly overpriced for such a cheapo DSP(16/48 max over analog)
dogbert's drivers are also great to get killer bit-perfect S/PDIF on a budget though(16/96 max over digital)
)
