Is there a different playback engine in Wavelab 12 vs Cubase 14?
I was working on a friends song and he was listening to the playback in Wavelab feeling like it was sounding narrow. We listened in cubase and it sounded a little wider. All 64-bit float and 48k.
When bouncing both and comparing they nulled, so I’m thinking it’s just the monitoring/playback engine, but was curious if our ears are just playing tricks on us or if there’s truth to it.
The audio engines are different.
WaveLab is designed so that the source sound is totally untouched if there is no process in the audio chain.
There is a simple way to check is some processing happen or not: use a 16 bit file as input, and use the Supervision bitmeter at the very output of the audio chain. If you still observe 16 bit as resolution, as in WaveLab, then you know no processing has happened 
Could Pan Law apply here?
If you apply pan, yes, but that is out of the topic. The idea is to test without any process.
I was wondering if different pan law settings in Cubase and Wavelab could explain why one sounded more narrow than the other.
Thank you! good to know it’s not our ears playing tricks on us!