A lot of us have favorite music on LPs or cassette tapes and would like to put that music on audio CDs or in our iPods or MP3 players to conveniently carry with us wherever we go. The newly- released Audio Recorder 2.0 Expansion (honestech, www.honestech.com, $49.99) provides about the simplest and easiest method that we have yet to come across for accomplishing this task.

To start the transfer of your music, simply plug the audio output from your cassette player or turntable (a pre-amplifier is required) into the line or microphone input of your computer. The program includes the necessary cables to accommodate most setups, but if needed, the Deluxe version of the program ($79.99) includes a USB 2.0 A/D conversion box. If you use the latter, just plug in your audio source, and the conversion box then connects to a USB port on the computer. Once your audio source is connected, you’ll have a choice of two modes of operation: Easy Wizard Mode or Advanced Mode.

We started by trying the Easy Wizard Mode, which uses a step-by-step set of instructions complete with appropriate diagrams to lead you through the process. What was impressive to us was the contextual help provided at each step. For instance, at one point you’ll see a message to the effect that if you don’t hear your music playing, click on the designated place on the screen for help. When you do, you get a list of possible problems and instructions on how to solve them. In one of the steps you’re provided with an audio level meter to adjust sound levels to prevent low signal level noise or high signal level distortion. The step that follows provides a useful noise reduction option to reduce, in the recording, the amount of hiss, clicks or pops that may be present in well-worn tapes or LPs.

There’s also an option to limit the length of recording time. Once the music is recorded, you’re ready to burn your audio CD. You’ll have the choice of burning it as a standard audio CD that will play in most CD players, including car CD players, or burning it as an MP3 CD that will only play on your computer or an MP3 enabled CD player (not all CD players have MP3 playing capability). The advantage of the MP3 CD is that it will hold more music because the MP3 file compression format reduces the file size.

In the final step you can choose to go ahead and burn your CD or exit the program without burning. The program automatically saves your recorded music as an MP3 file in the folder you have chosen. If you do choose to burn, a display shows the tracks just recorded, giving you the option of removing one or more of the tracks. Then the display shows the progress of the burn. Once completed, you can burn additional copies or simply exit the program.

Using the Advanced Mode we were able to not only record from cassette tapes or LPs but also perform many editing functions. For example, you can split an audio clip into multiple tracks, either by choosing the split points manually or by using the Auto Track Split function. The latter lets the program split the clip into multiple tracks by employing the "silent" period between tracks as the splitting point. In this way, you can record one side of an LP or tape as a track and later split it into individual song tracks. Alternatively, you can record one track at a time. Each time you start or stop the recorder, the program saves a separate track. In this way you can mix and match music from different sources and then burn them as a single CD. Party mix anyone?

Another function available in the Advanced Mode is to normalize too loud or too soft volumes for the best listening or create a fade in or fade out to the tracks. A built-in digital amplifier can be used to increase audio volume for music players with low audio output.

In the Advanced Mode, recording is done in WAV format for the best quality. This recording can then be used to burn an audio CD or MP3 CD or save in a WAV or MP3 file format. Noise reduction filtering is also available to reduce hiss from old tapes or crackles and pops from worn LPs. You can also use the audio editor to import and edit other music files from your computer.

We found Audio Recorder 2.0 easy to use, especially the Easy Wizard mode. Help came from tool tips, online help and a 50-page pdf manual on disk. Using either Easy Wizard or Advanced Mode, you can easily archive those precious LPs or cassettes so you can enjoy them for a long time to come, whenever and wherever you want, without wearing them out.