I jumped from Sonar to Cubase about 6 years ago for several reasons, most of which no longer apply.  The latest Cubase update is so poor after so much hoopla, I've decided to look at Sonar again, given an encouraging experience road testing X1 a couple of years ago.  I plan to demo at the weekend, but in the meantime grateful for people's input on the issues that I'll be most concerned about.
 
Narrow track height.  I work with big templates sometimes, and Cubase's very thin minimum view is a godsend.  X1's main issue was it was all too chunky - any improvements there?
 
Disabled Tracks.  This is, by far, Cubase's best new feature of the past 5 years - you can have a track fully set up and routed to a VI, but disabled to take up nearly zero RAM.  One click restores the track.  Is there any Sonar equivalenet?  Can you freeze a track with nothing on it, for example?
 
EuCon control of Midi CCs.  I think I know the answer to this - it can still only be done in Cubase.  Any good solutions out there for what works well with Sonar and midi CC control?  Not keen on app / touchscreen solutions.
 
General Stability inc video engine.  Is there a Sonar version widely thought to be stable?  How is video these days?
 
These could well still be dealbreakers for me, but time to do a bit of outside the box thinking perhaps.  Thanks all.

I haven't used Cubase in ages so I can't really compare specifics but you could easily download a trial version of Sonar Platinum to check out things like track height and track freeze/hide/archive.
I don't know anything about EuCon control but I would say that Sonar Platinum has on the whole been quite stable as long as you stay in the 64 bit realm. The least stable feature (for me) is 3rd party, namely Melodyne. And even that is mitigated pretty well by bouncing down edits when you're done.

The video engine is still very limited, but we don't really know what your needs are? Do you have any other video software to make adjustments?

I'll be taking a hands-on look for sure, just getting a heads up on some different ways for doing things than I might be used to.
 
Video - my needs are pretty simple, usually just reliable playback of an H.264 mov, spotting it in the right place etc.
 
You mention Track Archive - that sounds like something I need to investigate, thanks.  I think all my plugs are 64 bit these days too.

Narrow track height.  I suppose this could depend on your screen size and resolution.  At the most zoomed-out, i can probably see around 20 tracks on my 15" laptop monitor.  However, by grouping your tracks in to Track Folders, you can fold up the ones you don't want to see with a single click.
 
Disabled Tracks.  By "a track fully set up and routed to a VI," do you mean a MIDI track with the corresponding Synth/Audio?  You can go into the Browser View and turn off the power icon to the VI.  That shuts it off and frees up the RAM. To re-add it, simply click the power icon again.
 
EuCon control of Midi CCs.  Not sure what "EUCON" means...
 
General Stability inc video engine.  Can't help, i don't use the Video features.
 
Having said that, Sonar has come a LOOONNNGGG way in the last 6 years.  The trial version should definitely help.

I use the Artist Series controllers with SONAR, they work fine for volume, pan, sends, input stage, etc. However, controlling effects is hit-or-miss, especially since the most recent Artist Series update which IMO made the units more Pro Tools-specific.
 
As to video, you cannot move MP4s on the timeline, only Windows native formats (WMV, AVI, etc.). Obviously you can do a quick conversion to WMV since I presume you're just using the video as a reference for doing the audio.

Thanks Matt and Anderton.  Sounds like track height could still be an issue for me - surprised that Cakewalk haven't addressed that.  It was a game-changing difference about the switch to Cubase.  I do routinely use folders, but having something like 70 tracks on a 1920 display - and still be perfectly legible and workable - is a big deal.  It's probably the single biggest reason why media composers and those running large templates gravitate away from Sonar.
 
Disabled tracks is something I'll definitely be investigating.  How Cubase works - and it's far from perfect or glitch-free - is you have an instrument track with a VST loaded, all routed how you need it, than disable, and it takes up almost zero RAM.  Then you just hit your key command of choice - mine is a simple "e" - and up it pops.  Again, great for working with large templates, and having everything ready to go on launch.  I'll check out the various options in Sonar to see how efficient and how many clicks it takes.
 
That would be a pain if you couldn't move a MOV on the timeline, I'll have to investigate.
 
Sadly, the chances are I won't switch back, I have a feeling my few remaining features will be very stubborn.  Its such a shame, as I think my heart still belongs to Sonar, I do very much like so much of the way it does things, and it still seems faster to work with than Cubase in so many ways.
 
 

I would suggest you look at using Track Templates - if you are one of those folks who pull in a million tracks and softsynths, and then freeze/archive/etc all the ones you don't use.
 
By setting up track templates for various instrument sections, like violins, trumpets, etc., with them all being in separate track folders, and all bus routing assignments and soft synth instances and all set up, you can with just a couple of mouse clicks bring in any of those groups as a track template, and it will populate the project with whatever combination of stuff you put into the track template - again all with just a couple mouse clicks.
 
Just a thought, 
 
Bob Bone
 

noiseboy
Thanks Matt and Anderton.  Sounds like track height could still be an issue for me - surprised that Cakewalk haven't addressed that. 

Actually I think they have, there's a feature called Auto-Zoom which i absolutely love. Basically, it allows you to resize all track heights simultaneously except for the selected track, which can be as high as your monitor if you want. So my typical workflow is to have the selected track be quite high, and I set the other tracks to minimum height so they all fit on the screen. Then when I select a new track to work on, it auto-magically zooms to the height I specified, while the previous track shrinks to the same height as the other tracks.
 
As to MOV files, it's more of a speed bump than a roadblock. There are plenty of converters and if you're doing the video, you can always render a WMV or AVI file. 
 
Download the trial version and check it out. What you may be missing in your evaluation are all the features in SONAR you don't know about that are very useful like Mix Recall, Upsampling, VocalSync, FX Chains, ProChannel, Lenses, etc.

Sonar was my first major DAW but I have also been using Cubase 8/8.5 since summer 2015.
I still find Sonar easier to use than Cubase. Especially for mixing.
I build the project in Sonar and only use Cubase for very specific things like scoring, warping or Hermode tuning.
Cubase 9 is out as of Dec 7th and I am underwhelmed at the new features. I am not even sure I will upgrade.
New developments in Sonar over the last year dwarf Cubase development over the same timeframe.
Sonar seems to benefit from multi-core processors much better than Cubase does (at least in 8.5).
Lots of chatter about this in the Cubase forum.
Like Craig says, try the Sonar demo.
https://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/Try-SONAR.

Thanks again for everyone's input - alas, one demo session later and Sonar is still not yet for me, despite a huge number of positive attributes.  Lack of EuCon midi CC support and a narrowest track height that is too durned high (yes, I actually measured - it's very nearly twice Cubase's minimum height) are the dealbreakers.
 
I'll keep an eye on Sonar though.  All the promise in the world, if they ever address my issues I'll be right back.