Well, the reality is that you'll need to switch to Windows 10 at some point. It might not be SONAR that forces the switch, but the same thing that happens to Mac people with pre-Intel Macs when they find "Your browser is not supported."
I waited for as long as possible before upgrading to Windows 10 because W7 and SONAR was working so smoothly. However I wish I'd done it sooner. Platinum has been working fine for me. Every now and then I'll skip a SONAR update either because I'm too busy or there's some issue that matters to me, but then I catch up the next month. I've never
had to roll back, although I have from time to time to switch between a beta version and the last "official" version.
Although I see occasional posts from people about "SONAR crashing all the time" or whatever, I don't get it. Sometimes the answer is obvious, like ASIO4ALL interfering with something. But I believe if you have a computer that's designed for music and don't do stupid things (like install 4,000 free plug-ins written by well-meaning people living in mom's basement), problems will be rare.
I use SONAR almost every single day for several hours at a time and don't have
stability problems in the sense of freezes/crashes. There are things that just plain don't work (like the attack time on Strip Silence), and occasional bugs (regression or otherwise), but they are sooooo much more trivial than relapping a 24-track tape head or doing window splices
.
I highly recommend:
- Go for 64 bits, and avoid 32-bit plug-ins and bridging as much as possible. An all 64-bit system is best.
- Use a computer built by specialists like Studio Cat, PC Audio Labs, Sweetwater, ADK, etc. They know what they're doing.
- Don't install free stuff unless you know the source and you need it, or things you don't really need. If you have a good compressor, you have a good compressor and don't need 56 good compressors. Fewer variables = fewer things that can go wrong.
- Clean out all the resident crap. You really don't need "iPod Helper" to load every time you boot.
- Make sure all the drivers for your peripherals are up to date. Quite a few "SONAR doesn't work!!!!" posts relate to not having updated audio interface drivers.
Finally, I thought X3 was (and remains) a fine program. But I would not want to go back to it. Platinum has too many features that I use all the time that X3 didn't have. And I would go back to 8.5 only if doing so guaranteed world peace and humanity living in harmony...then it would be worth it.