I am almost ready to toss Sonar, and use an iMac with Garage Band.  I have both Sonar 7XL, and have even upgraded to Sonar X1 Essential.  I have several pieces of gear that I can not get to work with Sonar as an audio interface.  All I want to do is record a few songs for my demo.  I am a solo artist working with backing tracks.  I use Sonar to edit Midi backing tracks, which I then save as .wav files, and play live from my iPad.  I have no problems doing that. 

However, I need to do some recording, and have several options as audio interfaces to record my guitar and vocals to the project containing the backing tracks.  I have a Bose T1 mixer, an Alesis iMultimix 8 USB and a Zoom R16 which can all be used to send tracks to Sonar via USB.  However, they never seem to work with Sonar (either one).  Sometimes after trial and error clicking thru numerous menus, I can get Sonar to record, there is always latency issues.  Either latency during playback, or most frustrating, latency of the recorded track against the backing.  Isn't this what Sonar is supposed to be good at?  I'm an electrical engineer, and can't seem to figure out how to do this.  

I have been using Sonar for quite some time, but limited uses.  I used to use Cakewalk Home Studio (old  version) with Windows XP, and all seemed to work fine.  But I now have a Dell PC running Windows 7, and Sonar doesn't want to work anymore.  Why is this so complex.  I'm not the only one struggling with this issue.  I see posts all over with these same type questions about Sonar.  Seems nobody is getting help.

Finally, does anyone know if a good audio interface that seems to work well with Sonar, without spending an arm and leg?  Like maybe Tascam US144mII or similar?

I need help, before I just throw Sonar out the window.

Thanks,
Dave

It would be good to know what you have tried to solve the problem.
What driverrs are you using? There are ASIO drivers at least for the ZOOM, and I'd guess for those others as well.
There shouldn't be any special tricks needed to make it work, just the very basic settings. If the sound device in question shows as you Recording and Playback timing master, and the respective ASIO drivers as the In/out drivers, you should be good to go. Then you need to lower the ASIO latency (via the ASIO panel) from the default 50 ms to something like 5-12 ms.

The ZOOM, I believe, should be set to audio interface mode (at least my Zoom H2 needs to be when I use it with my laptop).

I use Line 6's UX1 and have never had any issues, even before I upgraded my previously terrible PC.
It must have something to do with what latency settings you have. Also, check the Asio panel on hs7 and make sure you have latency set to extra small. It will use up more of ur CPU, but not too much.

I am almost ready to toss Sonar, and use an iMac with Garage Band.

Really? Do you think the two are even comparable? Go ahead.