Sahaj Ticotin who is/was the brilliantly talented vocalist for a band named RA and apperantly does work for other people now posted on FB about some of the features in Cubase 9.5 like 64bit floating processing, built in melodyne, vocal align to which I casually mentioned that Sonar Platinum has had his kind of stuff for a while.

His reply is “but Sonar sounds like Sonar”. I asked for clarification and he said “A little grainy with a bit of bottlenecking in the summing dept. At least to my ears...”

Not trying to start a war but, is this a common assessment of Sonar?

"At least to my ears...”  Unless his ears are calibrated with an oscilloscope, it's all in his imagination.  Put him in a room with several identical recordings made on different DAW platforms, and I guarantee you he wouldn't know one from the other.

didn't you reply " it may also be one of the many reasons my stuff doesn’t come out pro sounding" ?
Come on man, Bottlenecking in the summing dept ? I've heard better excuses from a potato.
 
Im not going to squat on Cubase. its a great DAW and has some great features. My guitarist uses it.
But even he asks me why my mix's sound better than his. not once have I ever rambled off some crap about bottleneck summing. This guy is a fraud. I've told my guitarist the truth. I have better 3rd party plug ins .
Its not the DAW, its the one behind the DAW.

I totally agree with Poco.
It's all in his mind.
All the best.

That's hilarious. Maybe in his mind 2 + 2 does not always equal 4, but I'm pretty sure it does whether it's PC or Mac, SONAR or Cubase. 
 
Now if anyone truly is suffering from the embarrassment of "bottlenecking" while summing, what you need is my patented summing bottle scrubber - only $1,000.

Google points to endless number of discussions. The summary:
DAWs should not sound different. What they should do (exact) is pure mathematic, there is no place for different "interpretations", like there is for example in FX processing. But:
a) not all commonly used algorithms exist in all DAWs (such as pan laws, special forms of dithering, particular precision during calculations, etc).
b) in any program there is at least one bug (except in TeX... at least no one has found the next one for a while )
c) there can be different approaches and so results when it comes to the "border" conditions, f.e. when something is digitally clipping.
 
Note that to claim "Sonar sounds like Sonar" the person had to spend quite some time in Sonar. Even to put several tracks together, adjust fader levels and export the result, a ton of (Sonar specific) options has to be checked and set correctly. Such person can be easily trolled with the question "how much time you was using Sonar before you have started to recognize its distinct sound?"

Thank you guys. I’ve always felt that a DAW should be transparent until you PUT something on it to make it not be. I’ve always assumed that it’s all math, but I’m not good at math so what do I know? I politely ended the conversation with some self deprecating humor about my lack of skill and talent because I still want to respect the guy and like his music.

Here's more propaganda from a Cakewalk competitor! ;)
 
https://www.image-line.com/support/flstudio_online_manual/html/app_audio.htm

Theres way too many factors about digital recording that DO change, to put the blame on the 1 thing that does not change... math....

Through my life I have used just about every DAW out there. Its a much smaller list of those I haven't used. I do think Sonar does have a sound. It is in the pro channel.. If one does not employ the PC there is no difference in the sound of Sonar and any other DAW if any said DAW is also not using plugins that alter the sound. I kind of like the "sound of Sonar".
 
I was watching the TV show Scorpion Monday when the "brilliant" leader of the group was recording on an old Radio Shack cassette recorder. He was questioned on his choice of gear. His answer was and I quote was " I get a better signal to noise ratio with analog gear". I kid you not!
 
Its hard sometimes understanding the thinking behind why people think the way they do.