Pam Anderson is driving Subaru though...

I drive a Subaru too. But I haven't used the Nebula plugin for years simply because it has always been a resource hog.

No question that Sonar is prettier than Reaper but I have always believed that form follows function.Nebula ,from what I can gather from users who have been using it longer than I have it has improved dramatically in usabilty over earlier versions but it's the sound that matters and it sounds superb to me so I can tolerate its greed for resources 16 instances makes it very usable for me compared to 6 that is all I prefer Sonars GUI much more than Reapers.In truth though I far prefer Logic to either Sonar or Reaper or Cubase both in looks and functionality but like I said earlier I can't afford a new Mac at their exorbitant prices so a Windows machine is the only option and Cakewalk is the obvious choice for that OS.Sonar seems to have adopted many of the features of Logic(folders,screensets,inspector)Reaper looks like an ancient version of Cubase to me but looks are less important to me than usability.Like Sanderxpander said earlier some people seem to confuse constructive criticism with Sonar bashing ladies(or should that be laddies?) protesting too much comes to mind I'd rather have an E type Jag but a Vincent black lightning will do.

It's pretty easy to build a quad core Mac with good specs (i7 3770, 16GB RAM) for around a thousand bucks.
At least over here, I count in euros.
http://www.tonymacx86.com...ide-december-2013.html

I doubt all things are equal for a difference like that.
Perhaps SONAR is doing double precision processing and Reaper isn't?
Or, perhaps the audio buffer setting is 64 samples in SONAR but 256 in Reaper?
I never saw what the respective buffer settings were.  They'd have to be identical to even begin to try to draw a comparison.
 
 

Sanderxpander are you in the US?It costs more like $3000 in Europe for a new four core Apple and even on ebay $2000 for a used one which when compared to the price an equivalent horsepower Win machine that seems ridiculous to me.Anyway I can't afford anything like that at the moment so I'll just have to keep soldiering on with my old planned obsolescence junk

No I'm in the Netherlands.
Mobo 100e
CPU i7 3770 300e (actually more like 270)
Memory 150e
SSD 250GB for boot and programs 150e
Large HDD for recording 100e
PSU 100e
Case 150e

This puts it at 1050 but you could get a cheaper case or smaller boot SSD (I have 120Gb).
Anyway, you can get quite a capable system around this price point. For just a couple hundred more you could get a killer system. Not sure where you're getting 2k or 3k figures.

Btw I'm specifically saying hackintosh, not Apple.

Keith Albright [Cakewalk]
I doubt all things are equal for a difference like that.
Perhaps SONAR is doing double precision processing and Reaper isn't?
Or, perhaps the audio buffer setting is 64 samples in SONAR but 256 in Reaper?
I never saw what the respective buffer settings were.  They'd have to be identical to even begin to try to draw a comparison.
 
 

Keith, he mentioned using identical buffers.

It's possible there's just something going on between Sonar and Nebula specifically. Reaper is known for being lighweight but as you say, this is quite a large difference. I haven't noticed differences this large with other plugs, and I'm sure you guys haven't either or you'd have been on it long ago.

Maybe try NATIVE INSTRUMENTS MASSIVE using preset "1991" running simple midi bassline instead :).

Pict
Nebula 3 pro server

Does the software come with any support?
Have you contacted Acustica Audio to see if they can make any suggestions?
Have they tested their product with Sonar X3 (or even an older version of Sonar)?
Are other people reporting this problem with them - do they even know a problem exists?
Does Nebula have settings to tweak? If so, don't assume the same settings work between all DAWs.
 
Surely they want their software to work efficiently in any DAW or they risk losing customers.
 
If every VST was performing badly in Sonar then it might be fair to point a finger at Cakewalk. But this appears to be more of an isolated problem - maybe Nebula needs a tweak, not Sonar. (Didn't Waves just release an update late last year related to Sonar compatibility?)
 
Just sayin ...