Ed, If I retired today, you'd still have to be at it for another 19 years before you've caught up to how long I've been at it.

So let's not go waving our dicks around to see who's is longer. I'm tired of those games.
And I also know a LOT of other professoonal engineers, and - like in any other profession that uses tools - the real pros will tell you *every time* that you got to use the right tool for the right job, and that no single tool works best for any given job. And that sometimes there no substitute for getting your own two hands dirty.
I also know and have worked professionaly alongside a LOT of professional software engineers who make a living writing stuff lfrom audio plugs to voice recognition software, and every one of them will tell you that there is no way that such tools can ever truely replace the human ear for seperating signal from audio noise. They have their place, yes, but they are not a panacea. Nor are they ever intended to be.
I had a gig this summer where I was asked to remix and premaster some analog synth stuff in the vein of early Vangelis or Synergy (lot's of fancy ARP and Moog and Oberheim patches, oh my

). The client had recorded this stuff to computer via a very dubious quality sound card and unbalanced wiring. This had left a rather noticable noise floor on his tracks.
None of the NR tools I have - including the Waves stuff - was able to knock down the noise to acceptable levels of some of his synth tracks without artifacting the signal to the point where it sounded like beached whales with golf balls in their blow holes.
After analyzing the noise, I found that there was a harmonic component within the noise with a bizarre fundamental (see attached graph). I have no idea just where it came from, but I had to knock that down manually with a harmonic filter before throwing an NR plug at it in order to keep the plug from artifacting the signal too badly.
I will forever be mysified as to why you have the need to come on here and treat everyone - from rookie to professional - who has not dealt with you personally, like an ass. Including making fun of the handicapped in your sig line.
It doesn't matter what you know or who you know if you act like an ass. If you bothered to read any Dale Carnagie 9 years ago, before you jumped into this racket, you might know that by now.
And BTW, you'll get a kick out of the fact that someone is going around giving positive rep points to people who stand up to your flames and calling them their "hero" and then *signing your name to it*. Or is that really you?
G.