Sound Difference Between Sonar Versions?

Hi,
 
I ran across something strange and wanted to get some opinions.  Using S5 and S6 (I know, old, but that's not at issue) I swear I hear a sound difference.  S6 sounds more smooth, can be heard mostly in the guitar distortion and other upper-register areas like cymbals and drum attack, etc.  It is very very subtle but the overall impact makes S6 sound more smooth and analog to my ears.  So I decided to do a test by bouncing out the same project using both versions and when I loaded the mix files and phase inverted one there was dead silence.  

Is there some explanation for this, or is the only viable explanation that it is all in my mind?
 
Sonic

Thanks.  So there is nothing that could be making a subtle difference during project playback within the different versions yet wouldn't show up in the mixed files?  Even the slightest volume change or other elements can end up being audible, is there anything at all that might explain why I was hearing a difference beyond it simply being in my mind?
 
Sonic

I can say with absolute confidence there is no difference between versions with the sound quality. They use the same audio engine. However add one plugin and all bets are off.
 

subtlearts
I hate to say it... but if you did a null test, and were left with silence, then yes, it's "all in your mind" - meaning, what you're "hearing" is your own confirmation bias - what you wanted to hear. That's not surprising - a great deal of what people think they hear and see can be explained by confirmation bias, and in fact that very wording is dangerous - when I say that people "think they hear" (or see) something, I mean they really are hearing or seeing that thing, but that doesn't mean it is "really" there, or not exactly as they are experiencing it. We do not experience the world directly, we filter it - sometimes extensively - through our mental models of what we think is going on. Of course I'm under no illusion that I am immune from this - knowing it doesn't protect us from it, it's just how our brains work. So the real answer is complicated - yes, it's all in your mind, and a null test proves that (science is good that way), but that doesn't mean you're not experiencing it. It just means that if you were as determined to hear it the other way around, you would hear it that way instead. Welcome to the wacky world of brains!

I think this is one of the very best explanations ever posted. 
   

You have to listen to Samplitude Pro X to start experiencing sound differences between DAWs next!

Hello,
do you use the same pan law settings in both versions ?
 
Pan Laws have been the reason for sound differences of
different cakewalk versions in the past.
 
regards

Another question would be if there were differences between Intel and AMD or different CPU types and RAM.
A few years ago I have already read that AMD renders reverb different to Intel (AMD needs more CPU power). And there maybe differences how the CPUs are processing and rendering the audio signal.
 
 

I'm glad my little philosophical musing on subjectivity 'struck a chord' with a few people, it's rather an important topic for me - I really do think that a misunderstanding of confirmation bias is at the heart of much human misunderstanding, conflict and misery - as well as making us wonder whether we can trust our ears. Luckily, the scientific method exists, pretty much entirely for the purpose of overcoming it. Unluckily, most people don't understand that very well either, and an alarming number appear to have now decided that science (and, you know, reality-based, fact-checked journalism) is somehow the enemy because it sometimes tells us things we don't want to hear, or things we've decided to believe otherwise about. 
 
For the OP, here's what I would suggest: Find someone to help you do a real, double-blind A/B test, where you try to tell the difference between the two - whether rendered files or played back in the program, up to you - based on what you think you're hearing, do it a whole bunch of times in a row, and see whether you're right a statistically significant percentage of the time. It's not really difficult to do, but you have to be determined to find the real answer, not just confirm what you want to believe. Most people are actually not committed enough, and/or actually *don't want to know*, because they are afraid of the answer and would prefer to continue to believe what they already want to believe.
 
If so, that's OK, but you have to accept that you *could* know the real answer but have chosen not to. With regards to the difference or non-difference between two long-outdated versions of Sonar, the stakes are pretty low, nobody gets hurt. But it's an interesting exercise in confronting confirmation bias and attachment to beliefs in general, and remember: the stakes are much, much higher in other cases. And that's all I'm going to say about that, as this is not a political forum!

If dithering is being done, even without bit-depth reduction, that has some random elements in it which could account for small differences. Though they'd be very minor indeed to put it mildly.

If two audio files null to absolute silence that means they're the same. Though the hardware - interface and monitors - they're being played back through might not be reproducing every run-through in exactly the same way. And as Craig says, move your head slightly between playbacks and you won't be hearing quite the same thing every time anyway.

Thanks for all the replies so far.  To answer some of the questions:
 
As to format, the project is 24 bit/44.1K and was rendered to 32 bit WAV.

WRT any theory about me maybe wanting to subconsciously hear a preference it is actually the opposite. I was hoping that S5 would sound equal to S6 so I could simply stay with S5 where most of my projects are. So if anything, I was hoping S6 would sound the same or worse, but instead it seems to sound better.
 
BTW I did experiment moving my head around a bit in the sound field while listening back real-time and it doesn't account for the type of differences I'm hearing.
 
I was pretty meticulous in making sure everything was set the same between versions but I'll go back and triple check things.

Sonic

The OP mentions doing a null test. Depending on how it was exported, there could still be variations in the project files (i.e., master fader), but if the same project file was loaded into both they should sound identical when playing the project file alone.

I believe S6 was 20-40% better than S5.

mettelus
The OP mentions doing a null test. Depending on how it was exported, there could still be variations in the project files (i.e., master fader), but if the same project file was loaded into both they should sound identical when playing the project file alone.

yeah, sorry, brain fart, although he doesn't say he mixed them down after inverting and inspected the result, rather that when phase inverted there was silence, which could mean something so quiet it seems to be silent... dpe was only introduced in s5 so it wouldn't be a huge leap of logic to consider there was maybe some improvement/change between versions, and dpe is known to cause issues with some plugs etc
/fwiw/ymmv/hth/goodluck, etc :-)

Why care if there is an actual difference or if it is confirmation bias. I think you should trust your ears. Use what sounds best to you and make music. Life is too short for a musician to waste time on this kind of stuff.
 
S6 was an improvement over S5 in a lot of ways.

chuckebaby
I could be wrong but I believe the Capstan rollers in Sonar 5 were higher quality than Sonars newer versions.
thus less wow and flutter .

A little alcohol and cotton swabs might help to even the playing field, Chuck.