So, I’ve had the control bar in SONAR Platinum minimized for some time now and I like it that way. It takes up less screen space on my small-ish monitor and gives the layout a cleaner look but I’ve noticed that after hovering over a control and making a change or simply clicking on the bar, it takes the focus away from controls like Play/Stop and I’ll have to wait for it to fade away.

Maybe this can be addressed in an upcoming update - if I’m lucky.