Do you think A) Better or B) Different

I've held off and will continue to wait for the first update. After reading as many threads as possible I can't decide if it's A) or B) so hopefully you'll chime in with your vote.

There's been no real verdict on the audio engine. Some people feel it's way better and others, not so much. Some that couldn't run X1 are up and running X2 with no problems while others that had no X1 issues are having difficulty with X2.

My impression is that the jury is still out on X2 so I hope the forumites will eventually come to a verdict.

betterer for sure. The engine is more refined

Audio engine seems much improved in my opinion.  And X2 has more features.  I upgraded from X1 and glad I did.  May take a few tweaks, but worth it.

Engine seems a lot better to me.

Here's my take on it so far ...

X2 is running rock solid on my system so far ... and you know all the troubles I had with X1.

The main difference I'm seeing is ... it seems as though I can't run as many effects as I could in X1.

I have a project that is 12 tracks, all audio except for 1 synth and I have to raise the buffers on my audio card because my system can't handle it.

Seems to me I could run a lot more in X1.

I hear no difference in the audio engine, but it is easier to hone my mixes and mastering using the Pro Channel. It's actually quite a bit of fun now that the Pro Channel is working for me. If you recall, it was totally unusable when I was running X1.

So ... the short of it ... I'm loving X2 ... it seems to be a resource hog on my system ... and the Pro Channel problems that plagued me are gone.

I can't recommend it with a clear conscience because my situation certainly does not seem to be the norm, it seems it's giving more people trouble and there's very few posters like me who claim it's fixed most of the problems they had with X1. So I couldn't recommend it without feeling like I pulled a fast one on you Ampfix. :-(

The same people that said X1 ran absolutely perfectly without any problems whatsoever are saying the same thing about X2, so you really have to ignore those people. Everybody knows that 99% of all software has some issues, and we all know about the initials release problems with X1, so you have to question the intentions and agenda of someone who claims it runs flawlessly.

I haven't done any recording with it yet because I have a lot to do at the new house before I can even think about setting a room up, but I have no reason to believe that I would have any problems ... I've had zero recording problems with every version of Sonar, including X1.

I doubt we will "hear" engine difference.

What I notice about the engine is less prone to glitches.

I have a pretty solid machine but X1 would do a funny audio thing after editing random number of clips (as little as one and sometime not until multiples of 10's). Nothing would bring the audio back (believe me I know all the "tricks") short of closing the project and reopening.

This has not happened once in X2.

That is what make the engine a lot better for me.

I'm really interested in this thread because I'm about to change DAW machines and the "glitches" can be the hardest things to figure out since many of them don't show up in error reports or process's unless you're a code talker. I'm getting the new machine so I can install 8.5.3, X1 Expanded and then X2. I'm using the VS700 system, so, there will be some teeth nashing and problem reporting going on.

  Just got X2 yesterday. Runs much better than X1 here as well on win XP 32 bit. In fact, so far runs like a dream. Love that new amp sim and the Fx chain in the PC is a master stroke.  If I understand correctly, we can now add anything to the PC? I think that's a masterstroke, for folks running out of resources, you can freeze the first layer of FX and still have another layer that anything can be added before it goes to the buss. It's over between me and X1 for sure...

Had first crash with X2 last night....

I went from 8.5 to X2, doing a complete uninstall and fresh install only of X2.  V-Vocal now works and in general I do find it a little more stable.  That said I did have one major crash in X2 when loading a softsynth (not a cakewalk one).  It fried my faderport completely, but since I'm adding a BCF2000 controller this week I'm not too upset.  X2 is more resource hungry, and I've noticed when cycling through the media browser to preview samples it doesn't always release the memory elegantly.  The other day it was getting slower and slower (the now marker wasn't even appearing) and when I closed Sonar, after it shut down the desktop was still displaying the 'rendering' dialogue box and loading samples for about a minute.

But I do really like the new workflow and Pro Channels - and this is before I've invested in building out any new templates or screensets.  Going to take it real slow adding new VSTs.