I'll take a stab at it even though it's been a while since I played. The other reason I didn't answer is that I went with LWAMI instead of RA so I'm not too sure about RA.
As for sounds; I've never heard another sub's hull pop, tubes flood, or doors open. I have noticed that my own noise level goes up when I flood tubes or open doors or even raise the scope. It shows up as brighter background noise on the spherical array. I don't remember if that happened in stock or not. But, if it's modeled for Own Ship there's a good chance it's modeled for others.
As another disclaimer, I have done very little multi-player.
I prefer American subs because I like the waterfall. I don't spend all my time in sonar so it's nice to be able to look back over the last few minutes of noise we picked up. The only trick I can think of for waterfall is using a longer display time to help you pick up targets. If you're at the edge of detection then the target won't usually show up on the 2 minute history very brightly but when you look at the 30 minute or 2 hour it's a well defined line. If those aren't the right times for the display, sorry, it's been a while.
You didn't mention target ID in narrowband as a sonar function but I'm assuming you do that since you're using the DEMON for speed. Only tip I can think of for DEMON is being able to confirm (or deny) your classification based on blade count. Too many blades is a dead giveaway but too few isn't a show stopper until the contact gets louder. I've had seven bladed screws only show three lines when I first pick them up.
In LWAMI it's often easier to pick up quiet contacts by looking for their power line in narrow band than staring at the broadband screen. You're probably used to that though using the Russian boats. That process takes a little more work with a waterfall; but you have 30 seconds of history there too if he just went silent.
WAA range is usually pretty close to actual distance. If you watch it for a few minutes you'll see it bounce around a bit; that bounce is pretty much your margin of error. If your WAA says 16000 and your TMA says 8000; go with the WAA. The auto TMA guy seems to always want to put contacts closer than they actually are. That's why I do my own TMA. (And that's why I'm not always on the sonar screen.)
Lastly, don't forget your hull array in narrowband. It can give you lower frequency coverage while you're waiting for your tail to straighten out. It's not low enough to pick up the power line but it should get the second lowest one. That may not be true in RA but it's worth looking at. Also, flow noise in the hull array means you're not being as quiet as you probably want to be; slow down.
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