What is the best tool for converting LP's to CD or MP3?

I AM USING WINDOWS (D.M.E} WINDOWS DIGITAL MEDIA EDITION, SUB PROGRAM:- ANALOGUE RECORDER.
THIS WORKS FINE FOR TRANSFERING ANALOGUE CASSETTES & VINLY TO THE PC WMA FORMAT. THEN BURNING TO CD.
MY PROBLEM ARISES, THAT I CANT REFORMAT TO MP3 , HAS ANY ONE ANY IDEAS ON THIS PROBLEM

You must be looking at some kind of dj table. Any regular table has the red and white audio out jacks. Sony makes a decent turntable that retails for about 79 bucks. Get a Y adapter cable from radio shack, run lines from the turntable to the adapter and plug the adapter's jack in to the audio line in on the back of your computer.

this system...
http://www.dak.com/Reviews/2020Story.cfm#p3

I discovered this link a couple of weeks ago and after reading all about it, I ordered the complete unit (T/Table, Mixer and Equalizer program). I have been looking on this forum for the original post for the last 2 weeks,that gave this link, but have not been able to locate it. I hope to receive this product by the middle of this week(Feb.9 or 10th.) & will be posting back here to give my reviews and/or thoughts. I already had a turntable, but would have had to use the headphone out to sound card, NOT good. Oh! One more thing, you can download the software right after buying and I screwed up and lost the site giving my unlocking code and this was about 10PM. I sent email right away explaining my problem and they answered within 15 minutes giving me all the info again. So far, GOOD SUPPORT!

If anyone else on these CNet Forums has more information on this system, please post here.
Aloha & Mahalo to all,
RJ the Haole

Have you received the equipment & does it work as advertised? I ordered last week but was just sent a responde to inquiry that the equip is backordered and will not ship until next week. Is this a legit seller?

received my equipment. And it does work as advertised. I was a little put out with the company when it came to shipping and not answering my questions untill I became irate and demanded they tell me the ship date and where from. I was led to beleive it was coming from Calif. because of the ad. Mine came out of New York in about 10 days via USPS, however I do live in Hawaii, so it took longer. In the long run it was a great deal as they did not charge me the actual freight of $41.00, only $18.00. So my only problem was not answering me as to when shipped and how.

The programs work well also,especially the De Popper, but I do have trouble following Dak's instuctions, due to all the bull cr** in between. Have you ever read any of the books for dummies? Just get to the point. I would give the equipment A+ and software a B, because of the instructions. I Also like Nero 6 from begining to end.
Hope this helps.
RJ

Use the headphone output jack with an adapter. In everything I've read it's best to use the processed signal from a stereo then the direct output from the turntable. The stereo circuitry will remove a lot of hisses and pops and you can control the sound level thru the stereo volume and balance controls.

Creative sells adapter cables for use with it's soundblaster cards, relatively cheap too.

C/Net did an entire article on the process about two months ago. It should be in their archives. They recommend GoldWave.

You need a turntable and a pre-amp. Records are recorded with RIAA EQ. so they MUST be played back with the correct EQ to sound good. So and old stero pre-amp, a reciver with phono inputs or you can get a small phono preamp at electronics or music stores. John

Goldwave 5.0 has all the necessary features, recording, encoding, and editing. I've used some version for 3 years and nothing else that I've tried works as well.
It uses the lame encoder, which is the fastest available.
The editing features everything imaginable. The pop/click removal is tweakable and works great on those old scratcy recordings. I believe there is still a shareware version that you can try.
http://www.goldwave.com

Assuming you have good hardware and clean your records thoroughly before recording...

It still won't be perfect. In fact the transfer to digital makes the click, crackle, pop and hiss as well as plain old noise seem even more apparent.

I use Sound Forge 7.0a with the Noise Reduction plugin for recording and cleanup. I then use CD Architect 5.0 for burning. Really nice professional tools but you had best have a thick billfold.

There are others out there that many prefer. You can get many of them on a trial basis (recommended). Be aware the more powerful, and often better, software tools have a larger learning curve.

This is the best conversion app I have come across. You can get it at www.pdblake.com(I think). It works very weel, does the usually auto detect of the gab betweens tracks but there is an auto cut feature so you can tell it where to stop and start yourself.

Not only is the price reasonable, the tutorials are very explicit and provide great direction, the service is FAST and reliable, and they respond in an instant with tech support questions (if you have any) even on weekends. They also give you a phone number where a real person answers. The DAK software also removes all scratch noises from LP's and removes all hiss from tapes. Since I bought the entire mixing package at a great price, I got the equalizer for next to nothing which makes your converted items sound much better than the originals in addition to removing scratches and hiss.