IIRC, you had a thread regarding Nectar Elements a while back (not sure if you got Nectar 2). Have you tried out the Voice Over presets with that?

Depending on the sheer length of audio you are working with, the free 30-day trial of Audition CC may also be something to try, since they have a "match level" batch process that is highly tailorable. If you try that, be sure to save the project to a new folder first, then you can process all files "in place" so that it is transparent to the SONAR project. The onesy-twosy clip matching is a PITA when there are batch functions available and you have hours of material to process.

Jeff Evans
I am not a fan of what they are doing today either and that is called Cinematic mixing for films and TV series that we are watching with our live streaming options.  They are going a little too far in the opposite direction.  Louder voice parts are getting a little louder but softer ones are getting a little too soft for my liking.  The music and effects are blasting in now at quite high volumes.  I am finding it harder now to hear all the dialogue consistently.  Do any agree with me?  

so Cinematic mixing is what they call the inability to do a proper mix these days? fancy words for everything ... interestingly they still seem to do a much better job in Germany as all the dubbed movies come with dialogues that you can understand while in the original you constantly have to ride the volume control to understand when they whisper and not wake kids/neighbors when there is action an the agenda ...

No Cinematic mixing is not about being a bad or not so proper mix.  It is more about a technique they are using for a lot of TV series as well as movies these days.  The dialogue seems to be more spread over a wider range of levels.  Music and effects are often very loud compared to dialogue.  They are taking the soundtrack over a wider range of levels these days I think.  It can be a bit distracting too. 
 
An audio book I would imagine would need to have a fairly constant voice level.  Something that is a bit different to cinematic mixing. 
 
I once recorded an African singer who also had a huge range too.  He started very loud often and then changed as the dynamics flowed enormously.  I ended up using a limiter on the way in with a high threshold to just catch the loud bits and set them all to a nice even level.  It worked well.  It was easy then to edit all the other stuff relative to that. 
 
 

i agree about the misbalance with cinematic stuff, dialogue is sometimes almost impossible to discern on a tv playback, but i expect that's because of the thx/whatever boom-systems they have in cinemas these days?

I'm late to this thread.  But (1) I use Nero BurningROM for all my audio CD burning and have never had a distortion problem.  (2) I use Ozone (5 or 6) to "master" and then I always check the levels with Goldwave (audio editor) so all the songs, when burned to a CD, are the same level.  I've seen a lot of audio CD's, even commercial audio CD's, where the songs play at different volume levels and that is not desired.

Last time I went to the flicks (Beauty and the Beast) I had a horrible time with the volume levels of the loud bits. The really quiet bits lulled you into a false sense of security and then BAM, ear shattering decibels that I knew would damage my hearing if I didn't plug my ears. I spent the whole movie with my index fingers hovering on the outside of my ear holes as a sort of home made "limiter" (it even had look-ahead in that I was sometimes able to predict a loud part coming up).

It is obvious they now have the dynamic range in the audio soundtrack storage/playback medium plus the sound system to deliver it as well. They are just over doing it, that is all now. The dynamic range could be pulled back in nicely and the whole thing set to a much nicer overall volume.  Music and effects can still fell like there is power behind them.  That can still be achieved with a different overall mix.  And making sure the dialogue is clear and easy to hear All the time.  Stop getting too smart turning down dialogue and making it all match the vision in total perspective. i.e. if someone moves away or to one side etc.. let the vision reflect those things, dialogue can still be kept very audible and clear.  Changes to the dialogue sound can still be possible e.g. from further away etc but these changes only have to be subtle.
 
You did not have to sit through the whole thing being prepared for loud volume shifts and be ready to protect ourselves back when the soundtracks were being stored in analog form perhaps on the film. They probably had to limit the dynamic range a little there.  Yes the theatre sound systems were bigger and louder, but it used to be a bit more even in the past.  The music, dialog and effects were all very nicely balanced and the whole overall level a little higher than in the home but that was the excitement of going to the cinema perhaps.  As well as the much larger image.
 
If kids movies soundtracks today are like this new cinematic mix approach, then maybe we are subjecting our younger generation to overly loud and dynamic soundtracks. Is that good? They are getting enough volume blasting their ears now from other sources. 
 
I wonder how ampfixer is going with his voice over recording.  It can be challenging at times.  Even before the playback medium, the production is pretty important and will have a big impact as to how the final master will sound. Sounds to me like the first challenge will be to level out this particular voice over person he is recording. Keeping the character of that person's voice intact but making all the phrases a little more even. Before that track even hits its compressor for some final conditioning, this has to be sorted out. 

For anyone still looking, here's an update.
 
I listened to everything that was suggested and made great headway. The reason I was getting distorted CD audio was due to a setting in the Nero burning ROM. By default it was normalizing audio as it was burning, and this was causing overs. After shutting it off things are much better. Testing has confirmed that what goes out of SOnar is not being attenuated. It seems that every audio program has its own volume control, so each one plays things back at different levels. D'oh! what a newb mistake.
 
As for levelling the audio, I've found that I get better results by adding a compressor to the vocal track to knock off 2-3 db of level and then pump it up on the master buss with the limiter. Jeff's idea here worked very well. So I'm far ahead of where I was a few days ago. I've also learned that all compressors and limiters don't get along with each other. The combo I found the best in this case was the old Waves V-Comp on the track and the new adaptive limiter on the master buss. Thanks for all your help folks.

it WAS an newbie mistake,
but one i've made before..
 
maybe we overshoot things sometimes on the 'help' scale,
but obviously a few people wanted to see you get it right.
 
carry on,
and never tell this story.

I have been using Nero for years. That Normalising option has always been un-checked for me.  I always felt it was best to leave out any such operations because one does not really know what these processes are doing to your final master and from your example obviously normalising, but up to 0 dB FS I would say.  I think its good to limit your wave file final master down to -0.5 dB FS.  Or even -1 dB.  It can sound better for conversion into compressed formats and nicer on some playback systems. 
 
From experience what can work is a limiter (or compressor set as such) first in the chain on the track, set for a very high threshold so only those real loud sections will trip it and then the limiter will level all those bursts to one level. That level should be higher in volume too but only by a respectable amount. The rest should pass under not being touched.  You can add some rms makeup gain now, from this first limiter, as much as the limiter is turning down the output signal. 
 
Then you can follow with a compressor doing light conditioning  set for a lowish ratio and 2 - 3 dB gain reduction. 
 
Then another limiter on the master buss just raising the volume of the whole track a little.  That can work quite well if you don't want to edit all the VI phrase by phrase.  A little EQ before the final limiter can also work nicely.
 
But nothing beats doing the by hand editing work though.  Bit by bit right through the whole track.   If its long it can be a lot of work for sure.  It does give a better result.