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The first burning software I ever used was Nero (3.x I think) which came bundled with a Creative Labs 6x4x24 burner. I ditched Nero for Adaptec because Nero seemed a little difficult and confusing to a CD burning newbie. A couple years, several hardware upgrades and numerous coasters later, I switched back to Nero, but by then I had a much better knowledge of CD burning in general. I've stuck with Nero ever since... those early CD's I burned with Adaptec (that weren't ruined by buffer underruns) are full of read errors and no longer usable.
After having used the 2 main contenders (and several minor ones as well: WinOnCD, DiscJuggler and something from Steinberg I've forgotten the name of) extensively for several years I'd have to say Nero is the better product, value-wise. For the beginner it has wizards that make everything very easy and advanced features for the experienced user that Roxio's package doesn't have (plug-in architecture, AAC encoding, burning by cue sheet and more). Also, it's not necessary to install a third-party ASPI layer with Nero.
Pure audio CD's are a different story... here Exact Audio Copy wins by a landslide. It's got a steep learning curve, is difficult to configure properly, lacks decipherable Help and rarely gets updated but it's the only software that can apply a Read Offset upon ripping and a Write Offset upon burning. Uncorrected Read/Write Offset is the cause of the pops, clicks and gaps one hears in multi-file MP3's of live albums and in studio albums where the songs run together. It's called "Exact Audio Copy" for a reason and even the venerable Nero can't touch it. Ease of use is not always an indicator of quality.
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Last edited by JohnE.; 12-18-2003 at 04:20 PM.
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