[Bloody Sam Roberts]

"How much would anyone care to wager that some bright geek will develop software to automatically detect and delete the "clicks and pops" and generate a clean signal that CAN be converted and re-recorded? "

I'll wager my copies of WinMX and Winamp!

[js1138]

The clicks and pops are already taken care of in audio CD players. They are designed to silence or fill in unrecoverable errors. At worst you take the output of an audio player and plug it into your sound card. Or get CD ripping software that does the same thing as the audio player.