sharke
Surely a pan law would not affect the relative balance of elements within a stereo track that's at 100% width i.e. both channels hard panned? For instance if your pan law is set to -3dB center then panning both left and right to center is going to attenuate both sides (and hence the whole mix). But if both sides are hard panned and you switch the pan law from -3dB center to 0dB center then nothing is going to happen because neither channel is panned to the center. There will be, of course, sounds in the stereo mix that are coming from the center, but they're centered by virtue of them existing at the same level in both channels, not because they're being "panned" by any mechanism within Sonar.

That makes total sense, but my head is exploding so I'm going to have to run some tests to make sure. I keep thinking about the graphics in the article I referenced that shows how something panned to center ended up at different levels even when fed with the same input signal, depending on different pan laws. Granted they were stereo tracks with mono input signals, and with stereo tracks we're sdealing with balance rather than true panning, but I want to look into this further. In theory, people shouldn't hear differences among DAWs but they swear they do.

 
This is almost certainly a case of perceived rather than actual difference - a combination of a couple of cognitive biases such as confirmation bias combined with the contrast effect. It is worth reading up on how our brains work when we think we are making critical judgements. The shortcuts we take are called heuristics and they are truly fascinating. Heres a list if you are keen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
 
A blind study is really the only way to know for sure. The vast majority of credible blind studies done in the field of audio are revealing as to how prone to errors of judgement we are. Good examples are the  comparison of cheap vs expensive speaker cables (which not that surprisingly  found that no one could hear any difference greater than chance) and MP3 vs uncompressed audio, which more surprisingly also found that at higher bit rates there is no perceivable difference. The results of a study at Mcgill University

 
http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~hockman/documents/Pras_presentation2009.pdf
 
Brando is right - it is something far more subjective. In short, we love Sonar so it sounds better:)

So.... John's assertion may be wrong?
 
Who'd a thunk it?
 
Well, me for one. I know for a fact that I can listen to any of my mixes and on one day I think it's on the brink of brilliance and on the next it stinks of silliness. The exact same mix.

bapu
So.... John's assertion may be wrong?
 
Who'd a thunk it?
 
Well, me for one. I know for a fact that I can listen to any of my mixes and on one day I think it's on the brink of brilliance and on the next it stinks of silliness. The exact same mix.

Tell me about it. I've basked in the glory of my own artistic brilliance listening to a mix in the evening only to find myself, the next morning, jiggling the speaker cables in the vain hope that some loose connection is making it sound so bad.

I knew Abner Spector, who produced "Sally Go Round the Roses" by the Jaynetts. He was obsessive sometimes and cut something like 70 masters of that song. There was one he was sure was "the one." Then he had to go away for a few days. When he came back, he couldn't tell the difference among any of them.
 
The ear is adaptive, which is why it's so important to listen to mixes with fresh ears, several times, before signing off on them.

Makes me glad that when I was presented with Samplitude Pro X and Sonar x3 Producer qt the same time, both for exactly the same price, that I chose to go with Sonar X3 Producer...

The way I would actually compare, is compare the clip/song recorded in Sonar, with the 'same' clip/song recorded in Samplitude, exact same recording method, exact same instruments, guitars whatever, exact same effects etc etc, then play each one off against each other. I do this every now and then with Sonar and REAPER, my ears tell me REAPER wins every time, even just listening to the same BFD drum track in each, REAPER just sounds instantly better to me for whatever reason. But I still carry on with Sonar %99 of the time, I think if REAPER was nicer visually I would probably switch back, there are a lot of things I like better in REAPER, and it's much 'lighter' and 'faster', not as much over head and beg a footprint, things load quicker, there is a lot of good stuff there, and maybe version 5 will lure me back. I lost a bit of confidence in Cake with the Rapture Pro release, and almost returned recently, but Sonars 'look' and 'feel' have spoil me a little I think :)
 
I know there is not supposed to be a/much of a difference, and that one day one thing might sound good and the next day meh, but there you go.

John

sharke
None of these "DAW X sounds different to DAW Y" claims are ever backed up with science.

They shouldn't. I agree.  But I did hear a noticeable difference in favor of Sonar. Please don't  ask me why.

Sonar has the best emulation of Monster cables and it's build into its entire internal routing ... they just can't advertise this because of patents, trademarks and this kinda things ...

sharke
None of these "DAW X sounds different to DAW Y" claims are ever backed up with science.

Hi all,ok science......dawx and dawy sounds the same 15 years ago.It was another world.
Today with many daws and different alghoritms at the last of the chains (pro channel for sonar and many analog sat for other)the daw habe their sound.
i agree with you that the same daw must sound identical but with the same configuration different daw sounds different.
If not why develop different algho......one is enough.
Best

There is a HUGE amount of confirmation and expectation bias operating within each human brain... 
There is also a lot of unique aspects to each daw, like Sonar's PC...
Isolating all the values/normalizing them/double blind study is all that is valid.
The rest of the comments are rubbish