When I say boxed, I'm not exactly meaning brand new, but I do mean LEGIT. As in an actual serial number that is licensed and registered with Cakewalk, that you are willing to part with. 
 
That is of course, if the Cakewalk rules allow you to transfer your license to me.
 
Some of you might have a registered copy of Sonar 8.5 producer laying around collecting dust. You might could make a buck off of it. Not sure exactly what I am willing to pay. Throw an offer my way. 
 
I can use paypal for the transaction. 
 
If interested you must be willing to prove its a valid license and can be transferred to me.  How can you do this? I imagine by contacting someone official at cakewalk and having them email me to confirm.
 
 
-thanks
 
 
 
 
 
 

Sorry to tell you but one strict rule with Sonar is you cannot transfer the licence to anyone once the serial number has been activated. It's a one time deal. 
And most people have used that original licence to upgrade so it's would be complicated at best. 
There is not much chance of finding an un registered version at this point. 
Especially here, everyone here is most likely a registered user with a Cakewalk account that tracks all their serial numbers. 
There are many, many pirated versions and your a good person for avoiding the temptation. 
But bottom line is 8.5 is now a collectors item and to tell the truth I thought I'd miss it, but I don't at all, I still run it on my old XP laptop and it's instantly harder to use compared to X3 and onward. 
You might find it on e bay but you'll be taking a chance that it cannot be registered, As a matter of fact you might find Cake walk no longer even will allow registering older versions. 
So in the end it being a legit copy is a mote point. 
 
 
 
 
 

Good luck with that. Pretty much all the remaining inventory of unsold 8.5 got cleaned out from music stores and eBay shortly after X1 was released, due to the near-universal disappointment with X1. A great many of us who were at 8.5 decided to stay there (although most ended up going to X2 or X3 eventually, as CW gradually ironed out the bugs). Those on pre-8.5 versions scrambled to find a copy of 8.5, which at the time was considered the last good version. So finding a new copy now is going to be tough.
 
Furthermore, Cakewalk does not allow re-selling SONAR, so you can't legitimately buy it second-hand.
 
Good luck to you, though!

Hopefully a demo of the latest SONAR version will become available soon,

I've got one and it isn't even too dusty. Otherwise I am on X3 and won't ever go back to an earlier version so I can part with it no problem. It is registered to me though so I don't think you would be able to register it because Cakewalk does not allow license transfers. Nothing I can do about that, but if you still want it we can make a deal. 

Cactus Music
Sorry to tell you but one strict rule with Sonar is you cannot transfer the licence to anyone once the serial number has been activated. It's a one time deal. 
And most people have used that original licence to upgrade so it's would be complicated at best. 
There is not much chance of finding an un registered version at this point. 
Especially here, everyone here is most likely a registered user with a Cakewalk account that tracks all their serial numbers. 
There are many, many pirated versions and your a good person for avoiding the temptation. 
But bottom line is 8.5 is now a collectors item and to tell the truth I thought I'd miss it, but I don't at all, I still run it on my old XP laptop and it's instantly harder to use compared to X3 and onward. 
You might find it on e bay but you'll be taking a chance that it cannot be registered, As a matter of fact you might find Cake walk no longer even will allow registering older versions. 
So in the end it being a legit copy is a mote point. 
 
 
 
 
 

Thanks for letting me know, I did not know that.

bitflipper
Good luck with that. Pretty much all the remaining inventory of unsold 8.5 got cleaned out from music stores and eBay shortly after X1 was released, due to the near-universal disappointment with X1. A great many of us who were at 8.5 decided to stay there (although most ended up going to X2 or X3 eventually, as CW gradually ironed out the bugs). Those on pre-8.5 versions scrambled to find a copy of 8.5, which at the time was considered the last good version. So finding a new copy now is going to be tough.
 
Furthermore, Cakewalk does not allow re-selling SONAR, so you can't legitimately buy it second-hand.
 
Good luck to you, though!

"last good version"
 
That's interesting.  Never realized what a challenge it was to find this.

jungfriend
I've got one and it isn't even too dusty. Otherwise I am on X3 and won't ever go back to an earlier version so I can part with it no problem. It is registered to me though so I don't think you would be able to register it because Cakewalk does not allow license transfers. Nothing I can do about that, but if you still want it we can make a deal. 

Based on what I know now that would be illegal for me to do so. Thanks for your offer, I'm not interested.
 
 

First, it's pretty cool to see someone whose first response isn't to go find a crack somewhere.
 
Second, I'm curious why you want 8.5. I can think of various reasons (dealing with projects recorded in it originally, older computer will run better with it, has some plug-ins newer versions are missing, etc.) but wondered what your specific reason is. I'm one of those people who still has 8.5 installed on my machine but I haven't used it since...I dunno...2012 or so. The only thing I miss about it was I could customize the menus to be EXACTLY like Sound Forge when I wanted to use it for digital audio editing instead of multitracking.

Like you I was looking for copy of 8.5 since I bought a VS-700 system virtually just before Roland officially "replaced" it with the new Capture series ... unfortunately it didn't come with the boxed Sonar 8.5 anymore so I was disappointed when I reliazed that the X1 series doesn't work well with it ...
 
Hence, I got in touch with Cakewalk directly, bugged them repeatedly for purchasing one of the left over copies, even sorted out payment details ... but never received it (and thankfully never got charged) ...
 
Edit: that was more than 2 years ago ...
 
You are out out of luck getting an official legacy version, but there's actually no need for it - X3 has been great, Platinum builds on top of that ... so looking back I'm glad I never received that boxed version ...