My initial start-up was very slow, now it's faster than X3e ever was.

In Preferences, I noticed the new 64bit SONAR had some 32bit paths in the scan path which causes it to include plug-ins I do not use in SONAR.

Guyz one stupid question : how the he....do you guyz have it yet ? shops are all on pre order ?!!!

from http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/Coming-Soon

* A few randomly selected SONAR X3 customers will be getting the opportunity to purchase SONAR before it goes on sale to the public. We will send emails to these customers later this week with full purchase information.

Random?  i think not ;)

Initial plugin scan took maybe as long as 20-30 seconds here, with plugins installed on SSD. Seemed to take longest to work its way through Jamstix (during which it - or something - rattled one of the HDDs so I guess it was checking where the Jamstix samples live).

After that, subsequent startups seem as fast as X3.

To be honest, I'm not exactly that bothered if startup including a full VST scan takes 20-30 seconds. I remember when it took well over a minute. Mind you, I also remember when loading Word Perfect on a Win 3.11 x286 meant you had time to make and drink a coffee then take the dog for a walk.

Which was itself a big improvement on punched paper tape.....

Scans fast here. I have 112 VST's. Not sure if that's many or average but the scan is fine and fast and never stops or burps. Now I am talking about the initial auto scan when I launch Sonar Plat.
1/2 of my plugs are 3rd party also, like Kontakt, Ozone, Steven Slate Drums Plat, etc.
HTH

477 plugins here, about 80/20 64bit vs. 32bit and maybe 60/40 3rd party vs. CW.   The scan time feels about the same as X3 at the moment, no slower no faster.   But then it was always relatively fast in X3 too - the "toast" method is a wonderful thing.
 

I find that my WAVES plugins take longer than most as well as the others that depend on the DONGLE(s) in my system.
 
Jim

Could be...  I don't have any Waves or hardware dongle plugins.