As Cactus Music said, I would advocate wave editor integration like Sound Forge or Wave Lab that can be instantiated with within the program, such as also what Craig noted...

who uses, from top pros Sound Forge for final touches?

Beepster
Thank you, Craig. It really would be nice to have some dedicated mastering tools tossed in. I may be wrong but did my Noise Reduction thread inspire this thread? Either way I would absolutely LOVE to see something like an Izotope Sonar Suite included as an LE promotional type thing with the option for discounted upgrade to their full versions like we have gotten with other great tools.
 
The guys at Izo MUST know that Sonar fans are Izo fans. I think it would be an excellent marriage and from the algos that still exist within the program I can only imagine there is a decent relationship there waiting to be expanded. Considering what the Baker's have done and now the involvement of Gibson it could be very worth everyone's time to get this train rolling in that direction.
 
Again... thank you for pushing this. With everything else that has been going on some serious mastering tools could really seal the deal for Sonar becoming a threat to be reckoned with to the other "industry standards".
 
Let's do this shiz!

Beepster - I like the idea of a marriage between iZotope and Sonar!! Been using Ozone and Sonar now for years, but if would be great to see a 'getting together' of these two great companies! Imagine the work flow setups with these two programs.

Same "industry" marriages are allowed in MA too!! =D

mettelus
Same "industry" marriages are allowed in MA too!! =D

On posts like this, please put a warning upfront about not drinking coffee while reading. Your cooperation is appreciated.

But seriously, it's necessary to consider the cost tradeoffs of including sophisticated software within SONAR. The whole point of plug-ins was so you could customize a "stock" setup to fit your needs, and thus avoid having to shell out money on features (plug-ins, instruments) for which you had no need. 
 
Ultimately I think we're talking about three possibilities here.
 
1  For hardcore mastering, you would invest in a fully-featured program like Wavelab or invest in plug-ins like Ozone because it would be cost-prohibitive to build those features into SONAR.
2  For typical, less-critical mastering projects, SONAR could be enhanced to handle them without causing a price increase.
3  There could be a "SONAR Ultimate" version for $999 that integrated mastering tools but would still cost less compared to buying SONAR and a suite of mastering plug-ins.
 
Of these, I think 2 would provide a significant benefit to a large number of SONAR users. Then we can dream about 3 
 
 

I used SF forever then started staying in Sonar in the X3 release.  Except for the RMS analytic function built into SF, I no longer saw a benefit as any 3rd party mastering plugs I used were usable in X3 and I found I got more pleasing results by relying less on numbers and more on ears.

I'm all for option #2. Life is already expensive enough.

I agree, #2 is more of what I had in mind. If one wants to shell out for something like Ozone, that should be a separate purchase.

 
Please fix the remaining bugs before adding new functionality.
 
Imagine a Sonar in which everything worked as intended.