Well I have been using for about 4 hours now and I do admit that it seems to be running a lot smoother, no audio glitches I would consistently get,
everything is running fine, no audio stops if I edit/move events while its playing, had no hanging notes.
 
Apart from one VSTi crash no fault of sonar and a few very slight graphics itches , and the lasso latching on to more than intended, I seemed to have only selected some events, but I still found it kept dragging other events on the same track line with it or even surrounding, so I did have to keep undoing the action and trying again, but on the whole it seems to be slick, I say all this in comparison to X2 this so far is running like a dream, I wont swear by it just yet but I have noticed instantly some under the hood improvements, it must be.
 
Looking forward to tomorrow now, not so much a oh no I have to use this programme, but oh yes, I feel that much more confident in the experience.
Lets hope. 

I think it is a cop-out to essentially say we're too small to fix the problems that have existed for years.  I "drank the Kool-Aid" since Sonar 8, investing hundreds, perhaps thousands largely just to get snap-to back in staff view (which we lost with the X-upgrades).  Why can't you simply fix what you broke?  And lets add insult to injury by making the difference between any Sonar Producer Product and X2 upgrades $50.  For those of us that dished out upgrade $$$ for 8.5 Producer, X1-Producer, X1-Producer Expanded, X2-Producer, that seems simply thoughtless.  Yes, you can argue that I received the benefit of all those upgrades--but the irony is I still don't have snap-to in staff view.  For a singer-songwriter, this is an important tool in addition to the recording and mixing features Sonar offers.
 
 
So if it all the same to you, dear Cakewalk, (my abusive spouse for now two decades) I'll wait until free trial of X3E, when you are confident enough in your product to allow consumers to "try before they buy," because your history says that you will take my love and punch me in the face with it.
 
Additional note:
Interestingly enough, as I was reviewing the new features of X3b, I discovered the following quote regarding Staff View:

As a result, pressing "N" in the Staff View could cause Staff View snap-like tendencies to be disabled. PLEASE NOTE: The Staff View does NOT follow Global Snap settings. Rather, it auto-adjusts to place notes based on the selected Note Duration. (CWBRN-13311, CWBRN-14216)

Well, the problem report CWBRN-14216 was mine, submitted on 1/8/13.  I went back to my X2 Producer, pressed N and voila! My snap-like feature were restored!  Periodically, I have checked on this problem report to see if it was addressed (Clicking on the snap-to/by grid does not restore the snap features in staff view in X2) or a solution suggested.  To this date it has not.  I'm pretty sure I thoroughly reviewed the manual before submitting the problem report, and no one replied at the time "this is not a problem moron, check the manual" or better yet, "just press "N."  I said all that to say this:
 
Understandably, you may not have the staff to fix every complaint and every problem in this wonderfully useful and complex program, but you can ensure that the staff you have in place does what they are supposed to do.  If a loyal customer reports a problem through the proper channels and you know it is a problem, you should communicate the solution to that problem through the proper channels, as much of my frustration with your company could have been alleviated if your people had simply done what they were supposed to do.
 
Looking forward to trial version of X3 to see if the new features suit my needs.
 
Steve
 
 

Jace!
 
Listen man. RUN, do not WALK, to obtain X3. It is freaking brilliant. Well worth the cabbage leaf you'll lay down. Once you start surfing and moving through it, you're gonna be floored by all the new plugins, features and ease of use... 

Subjacent
...and the lasso latching on to more than intended, I seemed to have only selected some events, but I still found it kept dragging other events on the same track line with it or even surrounding

From the Reference Guide:
 
Piano Roll lasso behavior
By default, lasso selecting the top of velocity lines in the Piano Roll's Note pane also automatically
selects the corresponding note events. If you don't want velocity lines to affect note selection, you
can change the behavior by adding a switch to the Windows registry.
1. Click the Start button and select Run.
2. Type regedit and click OK to open the Registry Editor.
3. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cakewalk Music Software\SONAR
Producer\X2.
4. Add a new DWORD value called AllowLassoVelInNotesPane (click Edit > New > DWORD
Value).
5. Double-click the new AllowLassoVelInNotesPane DWORD event to open the Edit DWORD
Value dialog box, then change the value to 0 (0=OFF; 1=ON).
6. Click OK to close the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, then restart SONAR.

bobbyswamp
Jace!
 
Listen man. RUN, do not WALK, to obtain X3. It is freaking brilliant. Well worth the cabbage leaf you'll lay down. Once you start surfing and moving through it, you're gonna be floored by all the new plugins, features and ease of use... 

 
Have done, and  looking forward to using again now this afternoon etc, To be honest if it stays this reliable I will be happy to off spent the upgrade money, and also melodyne integration have give us the monophonic/melody, so in fact for what I do and audio to midi its quite useful without the melodyne upgrade for me, unlike presonus studio one all you got was a flat midi read out until you upgraded, so +1 to cakewalk for that deal. And thanks for your vote of confidence in X3 its about time we had some good news. for me it has been a battle in the past, so if it keeps on as it is, then everything else is a bonus.  
 
Cheers bobby

brundlefly

Subjacent
...and the lasso latching on to more than intended, I seemed to have only selected some events, but I still found it kept dragging other events on the same track line with it or even surrounding

From the Reference Guide:
 
Piano Roll lasso behavior
By default, lasso selecting the top of velocity lines in the Piano Roll's Note pane also automatically
selects the corresponding note events. If you don't want velocity lines to affect note selection, you
can change the behavior by adding a switch to the Windows registry.
1. Click the Start button and select Run.
2. Type regedit and click OK to open the Registry Editor.
3. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cakewalk Music Software\SONAR
Producer\X2.
4. Add a new DWORD value called AllowLassoVelInNotesPane (click Edit > New > DWORD
Value).
5. Double-click the new AllowLassoVelInNotesPane DWORD event to open the Edit DWORD
Value dialog box, then change the value to 0 (0=OFF; 1=ON).
6. Click OK to close the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, then restart SONAR.

I was Referring to the track/event view and events, but this information is equally valuable, so I do indeed thank you very much for this useful info
thanks brundlefly 

This is a major upgrade and it was aimed right at me. What a rush.
 
Like some others on this forum, I've used Cakewalk since it was a DOS sequencer that installed from a floppy. There were many days fiddling with keeping it synced with the chase track on my tape machine.
 
I do understand the irony... a descendant of a sequencer being not so great for midi. It is a lot better midi sequencer than it was in DOS, though!
 
Through many upgrades, it seemed most new features were aimed at improving functions for genres that I had no interest in. Even the music Sonar often accompanies its videos with is often...umm...not to my taste. 
 
Who cares?
 
It was always clear to me that to survive, Cakewalk was going to have to cater to the largest demographic possible. This includes PROPORTIONALLY less and less people who can actually sing and play instruments in real time.
 
I don't "just use Sonar as a tape recorder", but the new comping, ARA, etc. is worth more to me than a thousand "make music without playing or singing" gadgets. (Not that there's anything wrong with them.)
 
I'm sorry to those people who didn't get more of what they wanted, but I'm pleased as punch that they didn't just throw me a bone.
 
I got a big juicy steak for my money!