G'day Pratap et al,
Two things come to mind as you ask this that I think I can offer an
opinion on;
1) In my experience it is unusual to get really good deals (much
below the "white channel" wholesale) on legitimate copies of current
versions of software on Ebay if they are very popular titles. It does
happen but, often you are buying NFR* copies, counterfeit copies or
OEM copies that are supposed to only be sold bundled with hardware.
Maybe you are worried about that and maybe not. Many sellers will
use a stock photo saved from the manufacturer/publisher's web site in
the auction listing which can be misleading if you will actually only
be getting a CD. So ask for a picture of the actual item you will
get. I also have found that some software on Ebay is actually the
Academic version sold by starving students or less than reputable re-
sellers. I was a bit annoyed when this happened to me even though the
seller said, "full no limit version" in the auction listing. (It was
Matlab.)
On the other hand, older versions that are left on the shelf of
dealers, those can be real deals on Ebay. This is just my experience,
your mileage may vary particularly when you are patient enough to
shop for a while and find a listing that ends in the wee hours of the
morning.
*NFR = Not For Resale These are copies sold to computer
dealers/consultants/VARs etc so they can be familiar with the
software and demo it to their customers. These copies are only to be
used for "in house" use and are not to be resold.
2) If you are not trying to tie into the other fine Adobe products,
then I would suggest another Audio editor that I really like;
Goldwave.
www.goldwave.com
Goldwave has done a great job for me over the years and was worth
every bit of the ~$35 I paid for it (now it is $45). When I have had
technical questions the author was quite helpful in giving advice.
Can you say that for most software companies? I have been using it
for transferring tapes of music and speech (lecture series) to CD
format. Previous folks who have done part of this job did not pay
much attention to removing tape hiss and distortions from tape
stretch and drop out etc. Armed with Goldwave I have been able to do
a much better job at preserving this program material and making it
much more ear friendly in the process.
I have not yet used the newest version, 5 (just downloaded it), but I
really liked version 4 and version 3 was great too. Oh, did I mention
the free upgrades policy?
I have found Goldwave to be very stable running under Win98 and
Win2000 even when working with large files; 45-90 minute recording at
44.1ksps @ 16 bit in stereo.
If you wind up using both Adobe's Audition and Goldwave, I would
love to hear a side by side comparison of user interface and
performance. Audition seems to offer a lot of extra features and that
is certainly a selling point but would you really use them? I already
use Nero for burning my CDs for example. Certainly the cost of
Goldwave @ 1/3 the price of Audition is attractive.
LAter
John
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