I think winmm should work over directsound ok. I just need to look into what ASIO does now.
I think ASIO loads kernel drivers and bypasses the whole thing.
ASIO is a vastly superior API for audio programming. Its too bad that Windows doesn't support it as the standard. It would be really good if Wine provided ASIO support (well) - several better quality audio apps on windows use it and it only.
--p