djwayne
Yes all my high quality software comes in box sets. I'm willing to pay more to keep good track of them and be able to re-install the programs at a moments notice. Just think if the internet was down or there were problems with the company website,  how would you download them ??  You'd be out of business. What if you wanted to access an older program for some special plug-in or feature and that program was no longer available for download ?? I have a couple programs like that, that are obsolete but they run great and they are no longer available because a newer version came out that I don't want or don't like. I'm glad I have those programs on disks. There's a lot to be said for having factory made hard disks of older programs.
 
Who knows, with Gibson taking over, the price of the software might skyrocket, putting new versions out of my reach. I may have to keep this version of X3 running for a long long time.

All I will say my friend is back ups.

This along with 'which is the best DAW' (the best guitarist, football team etc) is a subjective matter. If you can justify the extra £££ (I'm British), can wait for delivery / be in for delivery, have shelf space in your studio - then by the box.
 
Otherwise just download and back up the media to your backup HDD. If we're all serious muso's we have a backup / spare HDD anyways, and it will install much quicker from HDD than a DVD.
 
And before I get slated - I am lucky to have fibre optic to 76MB per sec so can download pretty quickly (but that still only depends on HTTP / traffic calls to the Cake server) .
 
Secondly - If I had a box for every piece of music gear I owned my studio floor would cave in
 
It's an each to their own and is  why Cakewalk as well us other companies offer both options. But in this day an age it takes seconds to copy files of this size to alternate media. That said DVD's average 30 - 100 years, can't say the same for HDD's.
 
Oh no, now I'm questioning myself  ha ha.... not really
 
 

Disk rot will get you every time. It's not so much the factory disks are better, it's just that it's highly likely the disks you make yourself, (assuming made correctly), have been improperly stored. Betch'a a nickel your factory disks are nice and comfy in their disk holder.

Yep, my factory disks are all nice and comfy in their factory boxes. My homemade disks are siting in cheap plastic cd cases, which tend to get mixed up with all the other clutter in my studio. They get labeled with magic marker and look like crapola. The good stuff sits in boxes on the top shelf.

Heh, me too.... Disks laying about..
 
After a time, I copy the software to disk and it goes in a CD case in the closet...

Heh, me too.... Disks laying about..
 
After a time, I copy the software to disk and it goes in a CD case in the closet...

Well I always copy my factory disks to a BackUp Hard Drive as well LOL. But there is something about having the packaging and original disks thats worth the extra coin. This iwll likely be the last copy I "buy". Gibson is a horrible company and destroys everything they touch.....or raises prices. IS a "Standard" Les Paul really worth $2600 while the standard Strat is still around a $1000. Now they are gutting the Les Paul becasue the kids don;t see the "merits" of a 10LB guitar.  They ruined Baldwin Pianos now made by Dongbei Piano (which Gibson bought)  in China. Meh I will stick with yamaha Products and never forgive them for NOT buying Cakewalk and instead getting in bed with the Gibson version of SW makers,,,Steinberg, 
 
It's likely future copies of Copies of Sonar will have a SW protection key AND a couple USB dongles for sopy protection. 

I don't have any history with Gibson, so I don't really have anything for or against. I am hopeful for this acquisition though, that of company of Gibson's resources can put some marketing muscle behind cakewalk. I see many people get overly confused about TASCAM - it was always the professional alter-brand of TEAC, the products were always manufactured by TEAC, thus TASCAM was more of a specialized marketing operation.
 
I couldn't afford a Gibson, for my first guitar, just recently purchased, I bought an ESP LTD Viper 330. I't a really sharp looking take on an Gibson SG. The Les Paul style just didn't grab me.

I'm in the process of moving from New York to North Carolina and I am currently waist high in boxes. I will NEVER EVER buy another book or magazine or boxed software or anything made of paper that I have to stick in another box to move unless its on a couple of hard drives or DVDs! UGH!

Well last night I tried updating my East West Symphonic Orchestra Gold program to the Play 4 engine...My whole program got corrupted and had to be re-installed. I'm doing that right now. Luckily I have the factory disks and I don't have to download anything...it just easier to re-install than to fix the problem. Also my Ivory program was on a drive that I didn't like and want to re-install that too. Here again I have the disks right here and it's not that big of a job to re-install.

djwayneWell last night I tried updating my East West Symphonic Orchestra Gold program to the Play 4 engine...My whole program got corrupted and had to be re-installed. I'm doing that right now. Luckily I have the factory disks and I don't have to download anything...it just easier to re-install than to fix the problem. Also my Ivory program was on a drive that I didn't like and want to re-install that too. Here again I have the disks right here and it's not that big of a job to re-install.

This is why I'm so happy that CCC2 Pro came on an external drive with the libraries to all their current products on it. Installing the 120+ DVDs I got with CCC really sucked. Already made a backup of the drive on another 2gb drive just in case. :)