i always like the pro channel, but now that i have console emulation, tape emulation, and the Ca2a, my recordings have never sounded so analog.  I have never worked so little to get things sounding great.  My waves plugins are feeling very neglected these days.  I can't comment on how authentic they are, but as several have pointed out, the originals all sound a little different anyway.    

Believe what you wanna believe but please do realize you are reading a promotional
article.
I have no doubt they have done a good job and you can buy blindly if you want and 
you'l swear your purchase is a good one, as good as the hardware no doubt.
 
All anyone is offering is advices on their experiences.
 
I'll guarantee you even a lowly mid priced compressor will sound more fluid than any software compressor no matter how or by what it was modeled on.
 
I re read your original post "is it up to Slate Digital and UAD standards?"  That is very good positioning.
I'd buy UAD over Slate any day.
 
Like most we have tried plenty of plugins. We have seen plenty of hype.
At the end of the day it is the user more than the tools.
 
If you can't get the sounds and mix you want with Sonar X3 it might be time to take up playing the trumpet.
 

LA2A
Going by all the replies, the consensus seems to be that "NO! The Pro channel is not an 'accurate' emulation".
 
But i must say that Slate Digital had the original hardware in front of them, the 'original' hardware was in their possession, it had to be, in order for them to model it, and extensive A/B comparisons were done to certify the end result as being nigh-on identical to the original hardware - crosstalk, transformers, distortion, harmonics, everything; side by side it is impossible in a blind test to tell them apart, but it appears that this is not the case for the pro-channel, which is a little disappointing, seeing as how Cakewalk/Gibson touts the pro channel as being an emulation of the 'big three' analog classics. What's the point of having an emulation if they don't sound identical to the hardware they seek to emulate? Cakewalk/Gibson should just state that the pro channel merely sets-out to give the 'typical' sound of an expensive analog mixing desk. Has Cakewalk/Gibson ever sought to provide us with info where we might investigate what they did and what extent they went to in order to arrive at their claims of emulating three 'big-name' analog giants of yore?

And there we have it. Feigning genuine curiosity at first then coming back to promote competing products while taking a dig at Cakewalk.
 
You don't even own any Cake products, do you?
 
And no... the trial version doesn't count.
 
Do you have any actual questions about operating the software? Because that's what this sub forum is for. If you want to disguise yourself as a legitimate user I'd suggest a less conspicuous approach.
 
kthxbye

Whatever else might be going on, this does throw up the question of how much it matters how accurate the emulations are. My starting assumption is that these things are more of a flavour of the thing, rather than indistinguishable. And as has been observed, no two pultecs are the same, no two LA2As are the same, and so on. So it's nonsense for anyone to claim they've made the One Perfect Emulation.
 
I'm more interested in whether these things are good. Are they tools that enable the efficient making of high quality mixes? No-one's ever played a record because they love pultecs.

Sidroe
No, amp sims are not going to re-create that hurricane of sound!

 
My personal biggest difficulty with them is that they're generally weakest for clean sounds and the region where break up is controllable by picking and guitar volume. As you say, they give an "impression" only, though that impression has got better over time. I also just happen to find it easiest to get a good guitar sound by micing a low wattage class A amp or even plugging in a Sansamp than spending ages tweaking the gain staging of an interface/Sonar channel/amp-sim chain. I also generally like hardware synths in preference to software ones. A pity really as doing everything in the box would be much cheaper and require far less stuff cluttering the place up. But that's just me, and what works for me probably almost certainly wouldn't for someone else.
 
For whatever reason I find many digital effects, particularly compressors, eq, delays and reverbs perfectly usable, though not in all circumstances. Again, that's just me.
 
My more general point though was that digital simulations are perhaps best regarded as instruments/processors in their own right first and how deadly accurate they are as a model of particular hardware is really a secondary matter. Also many, probably most, of the people offering opinions on how good or bad an emulator is probably have no or very little personal experience of the original hardware being modelled and the more high-end or scarce hardware is the fewer people will have that experience.
 
In the end what matters is the sound.

I'm with Beepster on his view of this thread. There appears to be no point of it, other than to pose an unanswerable question and throw doubt on the power of Sonar...just like the OP's only other thread in this forum.
 
In that other thread, I asked, "Do you own Sonar X3?" LA2A didn't provide a direct response to my question, but as part of a later post said, "I myself much prefer Sonar and Cubase." Preferring is not the same as owning. 
 
As for whether ANY emulation EXACTLY reproduces the hardware...to absolutely know that, you'd have to be the engineer who created the emulation with the exact piece of gear the software was modeled on. It's not logical to get a few people on the forum to comment and then come up with the statement, "Going by all the replies, the consensus seems to be that "NO! The Pro channel is not an 'accurate' emulation"." 
 
Console emulation comes FREE with Sonar, and it sounds great on all of my projects. I've never had a client say, "Oh no! You used Sonar's built-in console emulation instead of Slate? You'll never work for me again!" 
 
As a matter of fact, I've seen videos and interviews with industry professionals who have said that certain plugin's don't sound exactly like the hardware modeled...but they actually prefer the sound of the plugin. Anyone who thinks they need to spend more money trying to outdo Sonar's console emulation needs to spend more time learning their craft. 
 

The PC modules that are modeled after hardware are very accurate to the hardware. This has been discussed before.
 
Foe an example see this http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/CA-2A

We get these threads every now and then and they are very transparent

I would think if you own Sonar X3 producer, you would know how they sound. 
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KUj9MUODEU

John T
Whatever else might be going on, this does throw up the question of how much it matters how accurate the emulations are. My starting assumption is that these things are more of a flavour of the thing, rather than indistinguishable. And as has been observed, no two pultecs are the same, no two LA2As are the same, and so on. So it's nonsense for anyone to claim they've made the One Perfect Emulation.
 
I'm more interested in whether these things are good. Are they tools that enable the efficient making of high quality mixes? No-one's ever played a record because they love pultecs.

I'd say what you get in Cakewalk is good enough. Perfectly adequate.
But it is good to hear your plugin rather than see it as a very nice GI might sound ordinary but it looks good.
There is an age old saying in the food trade. People eat with their eyes. If it looks good, it'l taste good. 
Honestly, use some null testing to hear what any plugin is doing.
Duplicate a track or stereo track invert the phase on one of them. You will get complete cancellation of sound.
Insert plugin. Compressors are great for this. You should still get nil sound at the plugs default.
If you get some phase adjust the plug to as nil as possible.
As you adjust you can hear exactly what is occurring with the plugin, like under a microscope.
Now alot of plugins you paid top dollar might not be as good as the occasional freebie.
What is important is you know what setting on a compressor for ex are actually nasty sounding. eg faster attack times.
You will discover exactly what those "Analogue" "tube" buttons do.
There is a plugin that can morph two plugs together and uses a common ordinary rotary
knob, no fancy looks to lure you.
I haven't tried it with Sonar's FX chain. But I am curious now and will check it out.
But you don't need to as the null testing reveals much. Basically after aby adjustments you try to null the files being playback as best you can.
 
There are plugin testing software that even developers use, some are free. And they give you data you cannot hear on your plugin. I'll get a link.