Mixdown quality issues wav format.

I've noticed that when I mix down to a wav and play the wav file back in an external player, the sound quality is not as crisp or clear as my overall mix during playback inside of SONAR Professional.  I've been using versions of Cakewalk since sometime around 2001 so I'm no freshman, but is it possible I'm missing some export setting or buffer size?  The output is a little muffled and slightly over compressed and has more mid-low and less crisp high end.  Sounds great inside of SONAR, after exporting it sounds passable but not great in the wav output.  I've played around with different sample rates and no luck. What gives?
 
 

When in doubt tinker some more.  It would seem I had the fast bounce checked on the output and was getting some degraded mids and highs.

I always use fast bounce for everything.
 
And all of my exported wav's will null with the project when re-imported into SONAR and A/B'ed

Always use fat bounce and all my exports are identical to the original playback. 
I use whatever Sonar defaults to, only thing I've ever changed is the bit depth from the default of 32 down to 16. 
One thing I ( and others too) do is before export I use "SELECT NONE"   CTRl/SHIFT/ A  
I find it always works perfectly where as I have had issues with Select All. Try that. 

maestrostephent
When in doubt tinker some more.  It would seem I had the fast bounce checked on the output and was getting some degraded mids and highs.

This should make zero difference to the quality of your export.
 
Prove it to yourself:
 

1. Export your project with whatever settings you like
2. Re-import it into the same project on a new track
3. Route it directly to your Main Out/Interface, bypassing your master buss
4. Flip the phase and play. This should result in near or total silence

 
 

Hence my use of the word "should"