Rating: 
Summary: Good except for one HUGE problem!
Review: When I purchased my new computer one of the main objectives I had was to convert my album collection to cd's. As a result I purchased a powerful machine and selected XP for my operating system. My system came with Easy CD Creator and I found that to be a good program for burning cd's. However I read the reviews on the Roxio Easy CD Creator Platinum Editon 5.0 which would allow me to transfer albums to cd's and found that everybody who had XP could not operate that software and so I began look elsewhere. What I found was Magix's Audio Cleaning Lab(ACL). Almost every review here at Amazon.com indicated the software did a good job of cleaning and improving the sound and that it was user friendly. The one big drawback that I got from the reviews was that ACL did not work if Direct CD was installed on the computer. However some people did seem to be able to run the software and burn cd's while others could not. I was able to purchase ACL for [a small amount] and figured I'd give it a shot. The software was user friendly and after playing around with the various controls I was able to improve the sound of my albums. However I could not burn a cd. I e-mailed Magix and they sent me prompt e-mails back with sugguestion and patches to download. I had already removed Easy CD Creator from my computer and so I could not figure why I was still not able to burn cd's? I sent an e-mail requesting a direct line to speak to a tech at Magix and to my surprise I received a direct number to a techs desk. I had to pay for the long distance call but it was worth it. This way I didn't have to spend endless minutes waiting on hold for a rep to answer my call as I seem to do with most tech support lines. The tech offered several suggestions and I tried them all with no success. It seems to me that the Roxio CD Easy Creator and other various software products that use Direct CD are preloaded on most of the newer pc's that are built today. Thus if Magix wants to do well and increase their sales they are going to have to get around this whole Direct CD issue. It dosen't matter how user friendly or good the program is if in the end you can't burn the cd's. As a reuslt I am now considering purchasing Easy CD Creator Platinum 5.3 which is supposed to be XP friendly. I'll wait to see the reviews before I purchase it. One last side note. When you clean an audio file with ACL the original audio file is unchanged on your computer ACL has a separate file that contains the changes you are making to the original audio file. I found that I can take the original unaltered audio file and transfer it to my Windows Media Player(WMP) and then burn that audio file to a cd. The only problem with this is that there are no separate tracks. In other words an entire album will play under one track. In order to create separate tracks you would need to record each individual song as a separate audio file. This obviously is a slow process and even if you have the patience to do this the material will not be cleaned.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrific Program
Review: Works as advertised. I had previously tried Spin Doctor on Easy CD Creator and was truly unimpressed. Audio Cleaning Lab works perfectly, recognizes track markers and is very easy to use. The de-clicking utility took out all of the clicks and scratches in the vinyl recordings and left the music completely unchanged. It burned CD's with my CD burner perfectly. This is a terrific program.
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