I tend to prefer Sonar for daily recording tasks mainly because I know Sonar very well and feel like I can get things done a little quicker. I'm sure there are people using Sonar for various mastering chores and luving it so there ya go. But that's probably unfair since Sonar has some tools available for mastering chores. Sonar wouldn't be my first choice as a mastering solution. Samp is definitely the tool for mastering. What one is lacking at, the other one seems to excel at. I think I've said this here before, they almost seem to compliment each other. Both products have their strengths and weaknesses. But in my opinion, they are like night and day once you start digging into them. Samp similar to Sonar? That's the first time I've ever heard anyone say that. We have a great community here that the Cakewalk folks participate in - that is worth more than we realize sometime. Magix customer service has been useless to me and their forum is like watching paint dry. Summary - Sonar surpasses my Samp needs and I love the licensing freedom Sonar gives me. In April I did one quick capture/edit/master project in Samp 10 -I only stayed in Samp due to the time constraints of the client and I really didn't need to put my normal effort into the final project unless they want the recording to be aired. Today I still use Samplitude in my on-location captures since it works better with my Presonus interfaces - however 100% of my post work is Sonar.
Samp can still do some nice things in the Mastering stage and I know a lot of folks that use PT up front and Samplitude at Mastering - not me - it was an editor before Sonar 8 and clip groups. Now I don't post in Samplitude at all and didn't do the Eleven upgrade.
I needed the clip group editing in Samplitude up until Sonar 8 included it. Can you say Dongle - huge issue for me and I do like Samp a lot.