Matron Landslide
The only place I have ever come across the audio engine dropping out is with SONAR, if it wasn't for SONAR  I wouldn't even know about the audio engine dropping out. You can even change your audio interface buffer settings with Studio One open and it keeps on trucking (as does REAPER) do that in SONAR and it's drop out time every time. Ever wonder why there was a designated button to restart the audio engine in SONAR? I did, and I know why.
 
As to the sound, don't know if I can explain it, but anyway, what I found is using exactly the same settings things just sounded louder in SONAR (and REAPER) without adjusting anything external or internal to match it, to put it another way, if I recorded a guitar track, all faders at zero etc, same plugs and settings, no changes anywhere to monitoring level or anything, playing back SONAR (and REAPER) would be noticeably louder than Studio One, but if you mixdown there is no difference.
 
I can get a far better sound with Studio One, which I couldn't match with SONAR or REAPER no matter what I tried, and it's because of the Mix Engine Fx in Studio One, the Console shapper, and even better (much better) if you buy CTC-1 Pro Console Shapper, I find that to be awesome. Not to be confused with SONARs Pro Chennel as a lot of people do, they are nothing alike, Pro Channel is just a glorified FX bin sitting on top as it were, Mix Engine Fx are applied deep within the audio/summing engine of Studio One, not just sitting on top as normal Fx, it's pretty awesome when you get your head around it, I don't ever not use it. Softube also make a Tape emulation which is Mix Engine Fx compatible and is pretty awesome. It is rumored that other developers are making Mix Engine Fx plugins, but I don't think any others have surfaced yet, but I am more than happy with CTC-1 Pro and Softubes Tape, awesome stuff.
 

Just checked CTC-1 Pro on audio deluxe for around £50 right now... £73 on Presonus site :)

Just tried S1 out....there are some definite things to like.
It's initial visual impression at least is far more professional than the others tried to date (Reaper, Mixbus & Mixcraft) and the user interfacing is fresh and functional. Mixbus gave visual grief at high res and was unreadable in some sections.
The V-Studio gear works ok on S1 unlike Mixbus which did not like the 700R but was quite happy with the Motu Pre8.
 
Overall after 30mins of playing around, S1 'may' be the new kid on the block for this user...bit more playing around required before getting too excited before Christmas.
Cheers all and thanks for all the sharing, it has helped.
PS: g'day Jeff!

I have also done some tests comparing summing in Studio One and Mixbus.  I tracked my son playing drums and did an 8 channel multitrack recording of the kit.  Used no plug-ins in Studio One.  Same deal, set channel faders to whole numbers and used LCR panning only. In Mixbus I also used no processing and removed all saturation.  Got identical sound from both and perfect null.  Mixbus is NOT adding any permanent special sauce in terms of some form of analog console emulation.  This put me off a bit actually.  It is not that different sound wise to any other DAW.  The Mixbus sound is coming form everything else.  Dynamics, that great 32C channel EQ and the buss and master EQ as well. Plus all their other plug-ins and some of them are great!
 
To those who think other DAW's sound better than Studio One.  Sorry you are simply wrong.  I have already proved this.  In total summing mode they are all the same.  What separates them is everything else such as stock plugin design etc. If you cannot get a great mix in Studio One the problem lies somewhere else. 

Jeff Evans
To those who think other DAW's sound better than Studio One.  Sorry you are simply wrong.  I have already proved this.  In total summing mode they are all the same.  What separates them is everything else such as stock plugin design etc. If you cannot get a great mix in Studio One the problem lies somewhere else. 

Please share your proof with us. Really, I am not a heckler but I genuinely want to see your proof. I would feel better knowing that my purchase decision was well founded.

I ran some more tests last night. I had some trouble with my screen captures though so I will have to do it again so I can show what I did and show the results. But in the meantime this is what I can tell you as absolute fact...
 
If you run tracks through with nothing and no movement, the sums will null. The second you touch a fader, there are differences. These differences can be perceived as better sounding or not. That is certainly in the "ear" of the beholder. But the truth of the matter is that there most certainly IS a difference. This is beyond dispute, which I will demonstrate very soon. My screen capture software is having issues so I will have to try again to document this for you.
 
If you import the same tracks into SONAR and Studio one...
 
1. Keep all tracks at 0, no fader movement at all. All faders at ZERO, export the sum, they will null. This might be what Jeff Evans might have meant.
 
2. If you make any fader movement; for example: Import even 1 track, and turn it down by 3dB in SONAR and the same 3dB in Studio One they will NOT null. You might say, well it is just a matter of SONAR sums a little louder. If that is the case, then I should be able to adjust the exports and match them to get a null. This is NOT the case. There is something different going on in Studio One that is altering something, changing something fundamentally somehow.
 
3. After I could not get a null from the raw exports, I adjusted each export to match exactly the same peak level (Studio One needed an extra 1.3 dB boost to match a peak on a certain snare hit). Even when adding 1.3 dB to Studio One to match it's lesser output volume to SONAR, I could not get a null. 
 
Now that know they do not sum the same, that there is indeed a difference…
 
Why is there a difference? Is this difference on purpose? Can the developers of Studio One comment on this? I really like Studio One and will be working in it. I just like to know all I can about the tools I employ. I am not a malicious critic, but a great advocate for an evolving tool. 
 
I will try the screen recording/capture again to see if I can make a video of everything I tried to explain shortly.

Sylvan
I ran some more tests last night. I had some trouble with my screen captures though so I will have to do it again so I can show what I did and show the results. But in the meantime this is what I can tell you as absolute fact...
 

Great that others find what i heard. I belive that I can and will make good music in my new Studio One, but there was a difference when i put in the the same project into S1 and had all the faders the same.
The same levels on the faders didn't work. You have to re mix everything.
I might have been  a little angry in my opening post. But I was angry. I was really angry that i couldn't make it sound the same.
 
I have tried to mix this fast in S1 to compaire. The faders are different. And I dont have Breverb, REmatrix Solo and BT Compressor CP2S-3. For the Bass with the BT Compressor, I imported the freezed track.
 
Studio One:
https://soundcloud.com/oyvind-jarsve/together-as-one-studio-one
 
Sonar:
https://soundcloud.com/oyvind-jarsve/together-as-one-sonar
 
I guess this mixes is in no way scientific. But you can hear what I struggle with.

armodeus
Just for a start it has no Dim Solo, seriously? I can't live without dim solo.

 
That is a major omission. There are several possible workarounds but any ones I've thought of so far are kludges.
 

And nothing like pro channel?

 
Actually there kind of is, you can click on a track and a ProChannel-like "sidebar" opens. It also has thumbnails for processors like EQ and compression.
 

Perhaps many people like s1 because it's simpler and easier to handle, that's what the new generations like, right?

 
People have asked me to compare SOP and SONAR over the years, and the answer really hasn't changed. SONAR is a deep program that's designed to handle pretty much anything you can throw at it, Studio One focuses on a specific workflow and nails it 100%. That's the same way I feel about Ableton Live. 
 
There are parts of Studio One that are genius, like the integration between the song and project pages. No other DAW has that. It also handles tempos and time-stretching in a much more straightforward way than SONAR. Overall, you win some, and you lose some.
 

Wow Jarsve, great job on both mixes. Very nice. 
 
Perhaps as we move forward with Studio One we could help each other navigate through the mix summing differences. I am all for banding together and making the best of what we have. Man that SONAR mix is killing it! It may take some adjusting, but the Studio One mixes can get there too, we just need to start readjusting to it's different sound. But it does make me weep all the more for the loss of future SONAR development. All the more I see how great SONAR really is. What a shame about Gibson...

Thanks Sylvan

It is a little pointless trying to recreate a Sonar Mix in Studio One.  Or even get into comparing how they sound.  They all sound great.  Unless you want to remix something completely you will more than likely leave your Sonar productions in Sonar.   Think more about starting complete new projects in Studio One.  Do that and then compare that final sound to your previous sound. What happens then when you produce a nicer mix than your last Sonar mix.  You may be surprised. 
 
The sound of a mix is from the use of plugins and the stock plugins.  Not in terms of how any DAW may handle audio.  They all do it very well.  What I would be doing is opening up my last big Sonar sessions and really take a close look at your total plugin set up.  Stock, plus all your third party stuff.  The third party stuff will sound the same in any DAW.  That is in fact the great thing about digital.  It is amazingly consistent on various levels.  What EQ's are you using. Reverbs, Dynamics.  I use quite a lot third party stuff so they will show up, behave and sound as they did before.  You will certainly be able to transfer presets for your plugins easily between DAW's.  That is way more important.  
 
Find ways to open as many Sonar plugins as you can inside Studio One if possible.  Or look for suitable replacements.  There are tons of them out there.  These may be better things to focus on.  On another computer I have got Sonar 8.5 and Studio One V2 installed side by side.  All the Cakewalk plugins appear there inside Studio One.  Some of your bundled plugs you love and use a lot that you get in Sonar (I know Sonar is very well stocked with provided plugins and I think that is great) may need to be re purchased. Talk to the plug in people too.  They may be able to help.
 
I just did a very big multitrack session using Logic.  Had to quickly jump from Studio One to Logic and it sounded great.  No big sonic changes here either.  Just like there at summing level for instance no differences either in how all DAW's sound while summing.  But this is where Sylvan is right!  If I were to mix a complete raw multitrack session on say Logic using all its stock plugs and all on Studio One with its stock plugs and even Sonar with all its amazing plugins then yes there will be three slightly different sounding mixes and they should not null.  But here is where you come in.  As I said, if you can hear the end result in your head there is no reason why you should not be able to get there with all three DAW's in this example.
 
There may be some level things goings going on I don't doubt that.  I know that Studio One records 3 db lower than what the metering says.  (At the top end of the range)  If you clip for example in recording, the built in headroom may in fact have saved the audio intact.  It's clever.  But minute level differences won't matter too much because by the time you are mastering the mix will be pretty loud anyway. 
 
Don't forget too the things that Studio One actually does very well over a lot of other DAW's.  The gapless audio engine is very nice indeed.  It loops amazingly well and does a host of other things.  All while playing often. It is jaw dropping what you can do while it is in play mode and record for that matter.  The GUI is fine too.  I use two screens and it is real nice in that mode. Seeing the mixer open the whole time with all your plugins and sends visible at once.  You can customise the whole look.  It is powerful like this.  There are many skins options.  Some guys on the forum are writing amazing macros and scripts which can be imported and run.  Like super advanced colour and GUI schemes.  Another guy is writing some serious scripts too that have added a huge array of midi features not normally present and its all free too.  They all run perfectly fine and stable too. 
 
You have made a perfectly wise decision in your investment.  There is also a nice forum over there with some really smart guys on it too.  There is also a whole third party website in Studio One Expert which is an amazing resource.