Hey,
It's good to see that someone has an opinion!
I've used all three wave editors extensively in my work over the past 4 years, I've chosen Cool Edit for the following reasons:
1. You can work in the spectral view. Both Wavelab and Sound Forge have spectral views, but they don't offer the same resoution and you can't edit in them. The other two allow you to simply view the data.
2. Cool Edit has the audio resoration tools integrated, Wavelab don't have any dedicated ones and Sound Forge only allows you to purchase their DX Noise Reduction plugin for $200, which, in my opinion, don't offer anymore features than the ones in CEP or other third party packages.
3. Cool Edit has a multitrack. Wavelab has an awesome multitrack but won't allow to do multitrack recording from multiple inputs. Sound Forge is a simple two-channel editor, you have to purchase Vegas separately for $350-$400 (granted, this is an awesome video editor as well).
4. Cool Edit has convolution based reverbs. Basically there are two types of reverbs: the ones which repeat the signal thousands of times, giving the impression of space and depth, and the convolution ones multiply the source signal by an impulse signal which represents the capture of a burst of white noise played in a space, like a cathedral or stadium. This simulates more realistic characteristics of the room. Sound Forge has this as well masked behind the Acoustic Modeling plugin, but it can be complicated to use. Wavelab has a reverb as well, I don't think it sounds as good as the one in Cool Edit.
Lexicon, Waves and TC Electronic all use convolution for their reverbs, I've been told.
5. Cool Edit is cheaper than Sound Forge and Wavelab. Significantly cheaper than Wavelab! $249 is such a smoking deal...
6. Support. Steinberg has the WORST support of any software I've ever used (I'm an avid Cubase fan), I don't even go near them when I have questions. Sound Forge has support but the last time I checked you have to pay them for it. Syntrillium has free phone support and a rapid email turn around, my questions are usually answered within a day or two.
7. DAO (disc at once) cd burning from the edit view. Wavelab has this but I found it to be complicated, Sound Forge only does TAO (track at once). For those who don't know, DAO burns are used for seamless tracks, like on techno mix cd's, TAO inserts 2 seconds of space between tracks. I think the burner is in beta mode, I'm lucky that it works with my drive.
8. A great waveform generator. Come to think of it, Sound Forge probably beats CEP on this because it does 4 operator FM as well....I didn't like Wavelab's generator, it seemed to be geared towards making test signals rather than as a musical tool.
9. Unlimited frequency capture. If your card supports 10,000khz, you can record with Cool Edit. Sound Forge and Wavelab put caps on the bit depth and sampling frequency they can capture, this is completely a marketing tool to encourage you to purchase their upgrades when they increase these.
10. MP3 Pro. Last time I checked, CEP was the only editor that supported this, it is an incredible codec, it really sounds good.
11. Edit each individual sample numerically.
12. Script and Batch processor, if I want to record my edits and apply them to a squillion files, I can do this in CEP.
13. REALLY easy to learn. It's laid out simpy and works like it should.
Pros of Sound Forge:
1. Multiple floating windows, I can work on multiple files in the same view. Very cool.
2. Pencil Tool. I really wish that CEP would do this, I think that Wavelab does finally.
3. FM generator, great for making sick sounds.
4. Acoustic Modeler. A lot easier to use than the convolution effect in CEP.
Pros of Wavelab:
1. Very powerful 'montage' window which is cool for putting bits and pieces of audio together, you can add real-time effects globally to tracks or individually to blocks.
2. Segment import from Cubase, they both programs work together nicely.
3. Effects chainer that works in real time, just like you were sending your signal to an effects rack without having to render.
4. Understands most VST effects. Granted, you can do this in SF/CEP, but you need a wrapper which doesn't always work.
5. Has the same 'feel' as Cubase, makes it very easy to understand if you already use this as your sequencer.
Nick
