I've always used the ASIO driver with my Rega DAC-R but it was a lot of frustration. Going from listening to music in Media Center 17 to watching a youtube video. I'd turn off the music in MC and even close it but something doesn't let go of the drive in MC or something. No Windows sounds and youtube or any other application apart from MC works. Usually I'd have to reboot the computer. So I wasn't really looking for an improvement in sound just less hassle.
I tried the WASAPI drives but they didn't even work. So I tried kernel streaming and that worked and played my high res files properly. What I didn't expect was how much better it sounded. A noticeable difference. And best of all I can switch back and forth from MC17 to any other app no problems.