Dithering keeps reverting back from Pow-r to Triangular

[JazzP]

The Dithering setting in the Playback and Recording preferences keeps revering back from Pow-r (1,2 or 3) to Triangular after each restart of Sonar. I have a paid Membership, premium options are unlocked. Any idea what might cause this and how to fix it?

Sonar 2025.09 (Build 038, x64) on Win 11 25H2 Pro, RME HDSPe MADI FX soundcard.

I can't tell if this behaviour was the same in older versions as I switched from CbB to Sonar only recently, although I remember seeing this issue with the previous build as well.

Edited Friday at 11:39 PM by JazzP

[Will.]

12 minutes ago, JazzP said:

The Dithering setting in the Playback and Recording preferences keeps revering back from Pow-r (1,2 or 3) to Triangular after each restart of Sonar. I have a paid Membership, premium options are unlocked. Any idea what might cause this and how to fix it?

Sonar 2025.09 (Build 038, x64) on Win 11 25H2 Pro, RME HDSPe MADI FX soundcard.

I can't tell if this behaviour was the same in older versions as I switched from CbB to Sonar only recently, although I remember seeing this issue with the previous build as well.

You will need to save it and overwrite your default template as well.

[Bass Guitar]

As said. The export dialogue is easy to overwrite any of the default presets. Just change it to your preferences and save it. I overwrite all of them. 
 

Ive reverted to using Platinum waiting for things to change from the Membership deal and that is possibly the biggest feature Im missing! 
 

You quickly learn how much they improved Cakewalk working with Platinum. 

[JazzP]

On 11/22/2025 at 12:54 AM, Will. said:

You will need to save it and overwrite your default template as well.

Yes, I have save the setting of coarse. Not sure what you mean with the default template; do you mean the default project template? This setting is the global setting in the application preferences, not a project setting. Anyway, just to double check I re-saved my default project template after setting the dithering to Pow-r 3, but upon the next Sonar restart the setting reverted back.

 

On 11/22/2025 at 4:44 AM, Bass Guitar said:

As said. The export dialogue is easy to overwrite any of the default presets. Just change it to your preferences and save it. I overwrite all of them. 
 

Ive reverted to using Platinum waiting for things to change from the Membership deal and that is possibly the biggest feature Im missing! 
 

You quickly learn how much they improved Cakewalk working with Platinum. 

The issue is not with the export dialog, but with the global application settings, so not following you with this one?

[Chaps]

11 minutes ago, JazzP said:

Yes, I have save the setting of coarse. Not sure what you mean with the default template; do you mean the default project template? This setting is the global setting in the application preferences, not a project setting. Anyway, just to double check I re-saved my default project template after setting the dithering to Pow-r 3, but upon the next Sonar restart the setting reverted back.

Just to make sure I understand what is happening, is your default project template saved as a .cwt file in the directory specified in the Sonar preferences default folder locations for project templates?

[JazzP]

That's corrects, my default (customized) .cwt template file is saved in the Templates folder (C:\Cakewalk Content\Sonar\Project Templates).

FYI: even before opening a new or existing project the setting already has reverted back in the preferences (no project loaded at all). In CbB the setting would always remain at Pow-r 3, so this behaviour seems to have changed in Sonar.

[David Baay]

I can confirm that Pow-r dithering options chosen in Preferences are not preserved when Sonar is restarted. This is not a per-project setting so should not be affected by template or project settings.

That said, what others are getting at is that the setting in Preferences has been effectively superceded by the setting in the Export dialog which is a per-project setting and does follow the template used to create the project.

So far as I can tell, the setting in Preferences is completely superfluous for new projects, but it might still be applicable to projects created in older versions of Sonar that don't have a value stored for the new export dialog.

[Chaps]

21 minutes ago, JazzP said:

That's corrects, my default (customized) .cwt template file is saved in the Templates folder (C:\Cakewalk Content\Sonar\Project Templates).

FYI: even before opening a new or existing project the setting already has reverted back in the preferences (no project loaded at all). In CbB the setting would always remain at Pow-r 3, so this behaviour seems to have changed in Sonar.

I am using the free tier of Sonar so I have no way to check this but if it were me I would make sure that workspaces and screensets were turned off in the default project template to rule them out as the root of the problem. I have never used them but I have seen many people find out that a workspace setting was the cause of their problem.

[Chaps]

4 minutes ago, David Baay said:

I can confirm that Pow-r dithering options chosen in Preferences are not preserved when Sonar is restarted. This is not a per-project setting so should not be affected by template or project settings.

That said, what others are getting at is that the setting in Preferences has been effectively superceded by the setting in the Export dialog which is a per-project setting and does follow the template used to create the project.

So far as I can tell, the setting in Preferences is completely superfluous for new projects, but it might still be applicable to projects created in older versions of Sonar that don't have a value stored for the new export dialog.

Can this be remedied by saving the desired dithering option as a preset in the audio export dialog?

[Bass Guitar]

This is what I was getting at. I never changed the one in preferences because I’m not exactly sure what it is for. As said I overwrite all the presets in the export dialogue because I mostly export at 48/. 32. So I want dithering off. 
As far as I can tell this is now global to all projects because you have to always choose a preset for what you are exporting. 

 

[David Baay]

1 hour ago, Chaps said:

Can this be remedied by saving the desired dithering option as a preset in the audio export dialog?

Yes, but even if you don't use presets, the export setup is initially going to be based on the project template's settings and if you save a project after exporting with different settings, that's now the default for that project when no preset is selected. I tend to just rely on that.

[Will.]

2 hours ago, JazzP said:

 just to double check I re-saved my default project template after setting the dithering to Pow-r 3, but upon the next Sonar restart the setting reverted back.

I’ve just tested this, and it appears to be a legitimate bug. I tested it using the following steps: Preferences > Apply > Close, then exited the DAW, restarted it, and it opened under the Triangular setting.

When I attempt to overwrite my default template using the Save As command, the setting only saves on the third attempt.

In other words, you have to go to File > Save As and repeat the following steps in the dialog window literally three times:

• Save As Type > Template.
• Go To Folder >Template Files.
• Overwrite the existing template.

Weird bug.