Apologies if this is obvious, but I am away from my studio so can't try this myself at the moment.  I am wondering if I can open an X2a project (with take lanes) in 8.5.3.  I am hoping that this is possible, with take lanes being interpreted as layers.  I am one of those who finds working with take lanes to be very difficult, especially for comping multi-miced instruments like drums.  Layers, while not perfect, work a lot better for me.  Until Cakewalk makes improvements to take lanes I am considering tracking and editing in 8.5.3, and then mixing in X2a (I am a big fan of the Pro Channel to avoid having a clutter of plugin windows).  This I think approach will be fine for new projects, but I am not sure if this will work for those I already tracked in X2a.
 
Thanks

I don't think any of the new features that are stored in any ways different from how 8.5.3 would know how to read and know what to do with would work whatsoever.
 
I would liken it to trying to open an XML-formatted Word document from Word 2013 using Word from Office 97, prior to them changing the stored data structure to the XML format.
 
It can only know what it knows, as far as I know.
 
Bob Bone
 

I don't think CW has ever asserted that Sonar has forward compatibility. They go through hoops to ensure backward compatibility but they can't foresee what may be in a new version. 
 
The only way to know is to try it. I would back up the project before trying.  

Forward compatibilty? LOL. Sounds like trying to prove a negative. ;-)
 
As John says, try it, but make a backup first.
 
Regards,