I am really excited to see that Sonar found a new home and has a new team, it is a relief to see that all this work will continue its journey. Meanwhile, I did buy Studio One and while there are features I miss in Sonar, there are few key things in S1 that I am hoping to see in Sonar:

• By far, in S1, the performance and playback stability are way better than Sonar. Plugin load/switch/patch load, etc are significantly faster. It is surprising how much difference it makes at the end of the day when you work on a large project.
• The playback and recording are smoother. I had to switch back and forth recently between S1 and Sonar, pressing play and record in S1 is way more stable than Sonar. I have seen too many times tempo getting out of sync in Sonar with VST plugins, midi notes forgotten under heavy load and other glitches.
• PDC can go crazy in Sonar with loops and heavy load. I've seen tracks with seconds of delay.
• Yes, the S1 arranger is amazing, but after switching back and forth, it is really the 3 items above that make the difference. Ripple edit can do a lot of arranging stuff.

What worries me is that the audio engine related stuff is not sexy and not easy to market. I hope that we are going to see more under the hood improvements rather than new features. However, there are few other things that I learned while using Studio One about Sonar

• Sonar has an amazing UI. The UI handles everything, layers, clips, etc and it is so clear and easy to manipulate midi and audio. 
• The step sequencer is awesome. The way it is integrated in the midi events is just perfect.
• The editing workflow of layers+takes is perfect.
• The built-in plugins are top notch. Between tape and console emulation, everything is right there.

Erik.

I agree with stability issues. I also had years of crashing over things as simple as dragging a clip from one track to another....or locking up just because it had been left idol for an hour or 2

Ditto, I'm remixing a 10 song project in S1 that started in Sonar. In S1 I'm able to handle 40 tracks per song where as with Sonar I was pushing it if I went to 24 due to the constant dropout issue. That being said I still feel Sonar's functions overall are better than S1 and still kept a couple mixes that were solid.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT S1P VER 3.5:
 
1. project page. worth the price of admission alone.
2. IR maker. same as #1.
3. Pro EQ- very straightforward, waterfall, lots of visual info.
4. bus routing: the way it should be.
5. VCA: pretty cool for setting up automation without going to the bus.
6. ampire: sounds as good as anything else i've heard.
7. groove delay: boy is this fun.
8. multiband dynamics: could almost replace waves LPMBC.... almost.
9. Pipeline Mono/Stereo : whoa.
10. the meters. they are awesome.
11. automation: creation of curves is dead easy.
12. arranger track: way more powerful than what i had in sonar 6 pe.
13. scratch pads. whoa. don't know about these? well, i'm sorry......
14. browsing. the best of all platforms.
15. multi instrument panel, and macro control knobs. for some folks, this would be the main selling point.
16. stretching the faders in console view, all the way up to the top of the screen. whoa.
17. Macros. man, i haven't dug into this fully yet, but the idea that you can set up a deep array of multiple commands and have them all automated, in order, via a macro, is super sweet. the build process is dirt simple.
18. low latency monitoring: the way s1 does it, it's mighty powerful.
19. drag and drop functions: super easy to create sends by just dragging effects.
20. there's more than i have time for!
 

For me, sonar playback has been tight for years. Overall performance has been impressive, even in very large projects. However, I use Ctrl arrow for coming in and out constantly, and every once in a while when I'm doing things really fast, that crashes sonar. Been a problem for years across different computers and OSs.
I agree that the UI of sonar is better. Looking at S1 when comping layers is a nightmare. No indent, similar shades of grey. Terrible.
That being said, the time and pitch stretch may be the best in the industry.
Stability has been impressive. Not a single crash.
Wouldn't know about latency in monitoring because I always use hardware monitoring.
The bundled plugins seem equivalent, with each having some area of advantage. I'm sticking primarily to waves at the moment.
I bought S1 and a series iii mixer for the tight integration. For me, that is the only reason I'll gravitate towards S1 for the time being.

mmmm, i love the smell of fresh code in the morning...

BlixYZ

I agree that the UI of sonar is better. Looking at S1 when comping layers is a nightmare. No indent, similar shades of grey. Terrible.

why have you not bothered to learn how to change the colors?
dead simple.

batsbrew
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT S1P VER 3.5:
 
1. project page. worth the price of admission alone.
2. IR maker. same as #1.
3. Pro EQ- very straightforward, waterfall, lots of visual info.
4. bus routing: the way it should be.
5. VCA: pretty cool for setting up automation without going to the bus.
6. ampire: sounds as good as anything else i've heard.
7. groove delay: boy is this fun.
8. multiband dynamics: could almost replace waves LPMBC.... almost.
9. Pipeline Mono/Stereo : whoa.
10. the meters. they are awesome.
11. automation: creation of curves is dead easy.
12. arranger track: way more powerful than what i had in sonar 6 pe.
13. scratch pads. whoa. don't know about these? well, i'm sorry......
14. browsing. the best of all platforms.
15. multi instrument panel, and macro control knobs. for some folks, this would be the main selling point.
16. stretching the faders in console view, all the way up to the top of the screen. whoa.
17. Macros. man, i haven't dug into this fully yet, but the idea that you can set up a deep array of multiple commands and have them all automated, in order, via a macro, is super sweet. the build process is dirt simple.
18. low latency monitoring: the way s1 does it, it's mighty powerful.
19. drag and drop functions: super easy to create sends by just dragging effects.
20. there's more than i have time for!
 

This is a brilliant list - half of which I have discovered since I switched away from Sonar, and the other half I am about to discover! On top of that, it is of course rock solid.

The only thing I wish SO could do is - the ability to drag a clip from one track to another and lock its position by holding down (say) shift as you drag - like Sonar does.

Oh, and sound on sound recording, although I'm weaning myself off that.

Oh, and sound on sound recording, although I'm weaning myself off that.

 
I have the same issue with IPA's! 
 
Brian

batsbrew

BlixYZ
I agree that the UI of sonar is better. Looking at S1 when comping layers is a nightmare. No indent, similar shades of grey. Terrible.

why have you not bothered to learn how to change the colors?
dead simple.

Watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg4d0mXRxvA I have not noticed the problem with colors. But how layers "behave" looks a bit funny.
All that "folders", "buses", "layers" and "AUX" was in any case artificial for me, so I am glad that I have left them behind and moved to natural (for computers) technology...