Kinda old news (05-07), but worth posting anyway...

Sonic Foundry released Sound Forge 6.

New in Sound Forge 6.0:
-Nondestructive audio editing
-Multitask background rendering
-Modeless Audio Plug-In Chainer
-DirectX® Plug-In Manager
-Enhanced Preset Manager
-32-bit/64-bit float/192kHz file support
-Enhanced time zoom (24:1 ratio)
-Customizable DirectX® Favorites menu
-QuickTime™, WMV, and MPEG-1&2 import
-more...

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/products/home.asp
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/news/ShowRelea...p?ReleaseID=440

That's great, at last Wave Editors can manage instant non destructive sound editing.

When will they handle non destructive instant sound processing, like WaveLab and Samplitude ?

I think Samplitude Producer pro 6 (from Magix) is one lenght ahead with instant non destructive resampling and time stretching ! A DJ dream come true !

what does "non destructive" mean

I'm a hardcore WaveLab user. It has that "back" functionality. You can go back and forth in your work. Maybe they are reffering to this?

In soundforge 4.5 there was no realtime preview with directx plugins. Does 6.0 have it?

Is that what you mean?

yep.

It means that the program never touches the wav you open. It uses its data to perform the editing or processing you ask.
There is no temporary file of the result of the processes you applied. Each time you play a part of the wav, the program reads the original unchanged wav and applies all processes during playback.
This way, you can adjust the settings in real time. You turn the volume setting up, and you see the waveform growing while the playback gets louder. It simulates a real studio with all buttons really working as the tape plays.
Forget the "preview" and "apply" and other "processing file, press esc to cancel" messages

SoundForge 6 speaks about "non destructive editing", but not "non destructive processing", but Samplitude, and Wavelab (?) can.