AHA! Had the audio driver type set to windows rather than ASIO. I should be fishslapped. When in doubt just do abuncha random clicking and remember what you did when it worked. Thank you all for sharing your knowledge and time to reply.
I will certainly be back the next time i get stuck - i spent some time today looking over the forum and see that there's some good ppl who like to help and share expertise. Tugging on sleeves is the way to get smarter. There's some good sleeves here to tug,