Can anybody recomend a softwere package which will allow me to record my old albums to CD? Looking on the web there looks to be a whole host of products, each claiming to be the best. I have a spare TX turntable, but do I then have to obtain an amplifier. Also if you have experiance of downloading, how difficult is it to remove the hiss and scratches form the recording and is it worth the hastle?

Well, if you want to spend no money, you can easily record each side into your pc as a WAV file, thenhack it into seperate tracksand convert them to mp3's, if you hunt for free converters and the like.

Personally, I bought Spin-It-Again last year to convert some of my LP's to the modern age (having gotten fed up with trial periods and the like

http://www.acoustica.com/spinitagain/

It's not free but it's genuinely very good software, really good interface and intuitive.  It's just a pain that I now have a Mac rather than a windows setup; I need to get an emulator i suppose

I use CD Spin Doctor which is part of Toast - a program I use on my Mac. I don't use the hiss and crackle filters. It does split the recording into tracks and having done so, iTunes will often find the name and track list of the album.

It really is a massively time consuming task if you intend converting your whole record collection. Much simpler to buy the CD and rip it or simply download from the 'net

Puncher:

It really is a massively time consuming task if you intend converting your whole record collection. Much simpler to buy the CD and rip it or simply download from the 'net

Agree. But for those tracks you have on vinyl that are not available online or on CD (hopefully not many!) I use Microsoft Plus analogue recorder, A Beocenter 9500 and Beogram 2402. Connect the phono outputs from the amp into your sound card and the software does the rest. It is very easy to use. Results are very good. I tend to convert vinyl and cassette recordings to WMA at 192kbps but you can use up to 320kbps.