I’m likely wrong here but I’m thinking the concept of the DAW started with the needs of electronic music which has never been as popular here as it is in Europe.

Yeh, you're right: you'd be wrong about that. Digital recording predates electronic music. Although that is likely the focus of most home DAW users today.
 
I'd also question the assertion that electronic music has never been as popular here as it is in Europe. If you're talking about the last decade, and specifically EDM, then yes. It's also extremely popular in Asia. But synthesizer-based music started in America with Switched On Bach and Snowflakes are Dancing (yes, the latter is a Japanese artist but no one in his home country knew what to do with him so he turned to Carlos' American distributor). And of course, the synthesizer itself was born in America.

Based on your points it does make one wonder why there are very few DAW companies in the US compared to elsewhere. I was referring to the last decade and EDM in my comments above but you are right on all counts.

soens
Just a thought, but wasn't the PC (including Mac) invented in the US? Then why is Sonar only one of very few DAWs made in the US. Most of the big contenders are from overseas. Not sure about the startups. Why is that? Seems the "good" stuff is always from "over there", including mobile apps.

At the risk of getting political, innovation in the US has been hurt by the domination of large corporations over, well, everything. Finland, Sweden, Germany, The Netherlands - they still encourage entrepreneurship. Startups and small businesses have a hard time getting a foothold here, because they pay taxes like an individual. No Panamanian tax shelters for them, no sweetheart tax breaks, no tax credit handouts, no subsidies. And then there's the incessant burden of health care costs. All because small businesses have no political leverage.
 
Fortunately, businesses with very low barriers to entry can still succeed. Facebook, Amazon, Google. All started with nothing more than a computer and a couple smart fellows. OK, Amazon had some serious bucks from day 1, but initially they had no physical presence except an office. They didn't have to turn a profit for years and years.
 
And while those companies do employ a lot of programmers, they constitute a very small percentage of the workforce. Contrast that with a software-only company that depends mostly on high-priced and hard-to-find coders, and that won't see a dime of revenue for 2-3 years after forming.

ok, I downloaded and installed the demo and so far I'm liking what I see.
 
so I'm trying out the things that are most important to me.  one of the things I need is to be able to use Superior Drummer 3.  so I figured out how to insert SD3 and I have my routing set up, but the problem seems to be that I cannot hear any of the drum sounds in SD3 UNLESS the transport for the main program is running.  if the transport is stopped, no sounds come out of SD3.   I can see the kit piece highlight as I click on it, but no sound.
 
then I start the transport on the program (not on SD3) and I can hear the drum hits.
 
is there any way to hear the drum hits without the transport running????  I want to audition drums and midi clips then drag them into the song like I do in sonar.  is that not possible here?

Turn monitoring on. It's the speaker icon in the track header. There are also some relevant global settings. Press Y for the options dialog and look under the first item, Audio Setup. Make sure the Monitoring/Engine Mode slider is all the way to the right, and that Monitoring Behavior is set to "Tape Monitoring".

SERecords
I’m likely wrong here but I’m thinking the concept of the DAW started with the needs of electronic music which has never been as popular here as it is in Europe.

 
Hard to say who or what came first. According to Wikipedia, Pro Tools (Digidesign) was created in California, started 2 years after Cakewalk, and was the 1st one used by major recording studios (why it's considered the best by the industry). But Sound Tools came before that. SAW & Samplitude were among the 1st Windows DAWs in 1992-3. But you could even trace it back to "the coolest thing that ever happened to the audio world". Toward the end you'll be thinking "did that just happen again?"

Terrible news about the demise of Sonar. I feel sorry for those of you that have supported it all these years.
 
I don't do nearly as much recording as I used to but, AFA Sam goes, I've been using it for several years so here are a few thoughts. 
 
I bought the inexpensive Magix Music Studio (sortof a Samplitude lite) years ago to use as a replacement for Cooledit (which Adobe wanted an arm and a leg to upgrade to Audition). I liked it so much that I bought Sam9. I personally don't think I have any use for SoundForge because Sam handles my audio needs well enough. I don't understand why Magix bought it.
 
Things I like about Sam vs Sonar:
 
* comparisonics wav display. Displays the wavform in color, with higher frequencies brighter colors. Makes it easier to zoom in on a particular part for editing. Here's a Kraznet video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go7a09fsI7c
 
* Opening/importing a wav file is much faster than Sonar. After a file is opened, auxiliary meta files are written to the same folder that make reopening/displaying the file again practically instantaneous. Even if Sam had never opened the wav file before, it's still very fast compared to Sonar.
 
* You can do several non-destructive edits on wav files. Then, you can just freeze/unfreeze the track or object. If I remember correctly, in Sonar pretty much everything to do with wav files was destructive.
 
* Many great sounding high quality plugins are included.
 
* It seems like things sound better in Sam. I know it's probably just psychological, but so what? It seems to sound clearer so I think that's a plus.
 
 
Things I don't like as much as Sonar:
 
* Comping feels more intuitive in Sonar. (My favorite comping was Project 5's)
 
* Liquid Mix never worked right in Sam but worked perfectly in Sonar. It stuttered horribly in Sam. That's irrelevant now that firewire is gone.
 
* The midi implementation is not as versatile as it is in Sonar. But it's pretty darn good though. I put in a feature request to use a scripting language like Python to manipulate midi files but nothing's come of it yet. CAL is bizarre but at least it's something..
 
* Sam's documentation is pretty poor. Lots of german-to-english translation mistakes, and some things are not described in depth. The forum and Kraznet's videos are invaluable.
 

I've seen the term "English (International)" used somewhere. Could be the issue for translating.
 
OAN, the 30 day demo is really 7 days + 23 if you register. The 1st day only lasted 6 hours. Then I had to adjust my system clock and found the 4 remaining trial days were expired.

bitflipper
Turn monitoring on. It's the speaker icon in the track header. There are also some relevant global settings. Press Y for the options dialog and look under the first item, Audio Setup. Make sure the Monitoring/Engine Mode slider is all the way to the right, and that Monitoring Behavior is set to "Tape Monitoring".

Ah!  thanks Dave!