I haven't got to the mixdown point in my learning curve. It looks like voodoo to me. Mixdown and mastering are something I know squat about atm! I'm just getting a handle on editing with the help of Groove3.

I'm wondering about working on an mp3.  It shouldn't sound any worse than that, although I've dropped 320 mp3 vocals into projects.
 
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charlyg
Whatever they do it is never worse than what I hear in the program.

paulo
So, what is the problem ? You want it to be worse sometimes ??
 

 
 
 

charlyg
Maybe I should have said impressed instead of intrigued..then again, maybe I am easily impressed.
 

 
 
OIC. I misunderstood your original post and thought you were saying that you figured that it should be different somehow. D'oh !

dcumpian
If it wasn't exactly what I heard, Sonar would be defective, as would any DAW that couldn't provide an accurate mixdown. Having said that, are there really any DAWS in 2015 that can't provide an accurate mixdown?
 
Regards,
Dan

I agree with this completely.  Even on the old freeware DAW I used to use, Kristal Audio Engine, the mixdown would be exactly as I would hear when playing the mix in the DAW before the mixdown, and that's an antiquated 16-bit DAW.
 
The only difference I hear between playing the mix in Sonar and then playing the mixed-down .wav file in something like VLC is volume, as for some reason VLC plays files louder than everything else.  But volume aside, to my ear at least, the sound is identical.  Of course there may be some differences in media players which offer different EQ options, but if you play a file with all the EQ dials in the middle the sound should be identical.

charlyg
I haven't got to the mixdown point in my learning curve. It looks like voodoo to me. Mixdown and mastering are something I know squat about atm! I'm just getting a handle on editing with the help of Groove3.

I can't think of a DAW where we would have to worry about the final mix. The only thing that will spoil a mix is the operator. Math is math is math.

charlyg
I haven't got to the mixdown point in my learning curve. It looks like voodoo to me. Mixdown and mastering are something I know squat about atm! I'm just getting a handle on editing with the help of Groove3.

When you think it sounds good to your ears, just go to file, export ,audio. Then you have many options for mixdown. If you want it on a cd (to play on cd players), you will have to make it wave, 44100, 16 bit i(f you just want to play it on another computer, you can choose 24 bit). Just give it a go, and hear how it plays on other speakers / headphones.
Best of luck.