Thanks for the reply. Yup I do agree that 205 bpm is too high to maintain a good performance. I also read advice that typically composers record at lower tempo for accuracy and then jack it up to the actual song requirements.

Nonetheless I am apparently still experiencing fairly reproducible better performance on other platforms than sonar, whether it is 205 bpm or 120 bpm. hence wanted to check if there are other ways to further improve the situation, in addition to lowering the bpm

Sorry for the double mail, to add on, the music I was working on is 150 bpm and i was also experiencing this issue frequently, which triggered the subsequent investigations..

Sorry for the double mail, to add on, the music I was working on is 150 bpm and i was also experiencing this issue frequently, which triggered the subsequent investigations..

A week ago I would have just said, you really do need an audio interface just to get the stable ASIO drivers needed for timing issues. Are you running Windows 10? The new release of Sonar now includes the ability to use WASAPI driver mode, try that if your W10. (Forget it if W7.) it was added just for folks like you.  
 
Your suffering badly from offset timing which is common with on board sound. 
 
Read my thread here to learn about offset latency
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Home-Studio-and-WASAPI-m3521297.aspx
 

 
 

You are comparing an older version of Sonar against the latest version of Cubase and that may not be a fair comparison.  Cubase may have optimized their software for MME drivers while the older Sonar did not.  For a true comparison you will need same circa version of Cubase or the latest Sonar.
 
If you are serious about recording in any DAW then you should get a good audio interface that runs on native drivers.  These will eliminate any latency.

He said the latest version of Sonar. Cubase is not as freaked out about crappy drivers. I can verify that, I have Cubase. 
The offset timing is determined by the audio driver reporting the correct information to the software. This can certainly end up different with different software.. 
 

Thanks for the reply. Yes I'm using the latest version of sonar. my auto update is enabled every time I launch the client. Unfortunately I'm using windows 8.1. Is there no wasapi equivalent for that? If not, may I confirm that buying an audio interface should help to at least mitigate this issue? That should still cost way lower than cubase and Thus far it seems that functionality wise everything else is comparable between the two.

If I recall correctly, wasn't there something a while back that the audio used in Sonar's metronome wasn't tight enough and someone had published fixed metronome WAV files? I thought Azslow was the one that had done this...
 
Regards,
Dan
 

It was Panu:
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com...included-m3314119.aspx

Some click samples might have a sligthly slower or delayed attack, but I don't think any of them could account for noticeable timing errors. I never used them because the default Ping Lo/Hi samples that I'm accustomed to using were not included, and have a nice quick attack.

I was just thinking that at 205 BPM, having the metronome hits be slightly off might be significant.
 
Regards,
Dan