restoration

I'm looking for some good restoration software. I have a great performance on my x1 producer recorded on a cassette 4trk. It's a little noisy, over compressed and lacks lows and highs.  Good luck right ! lol. Just wondered what's out there. I haven't looked in a decade.
 
thanks.

Izotope RX3 is generally recommended as the best tool for the job. There's an advanced version that's very expensive, and a basic version that does fine for most applications. You can also get either one in a bundle for a bigger discount, for example sometimes with the popular Ozone mastering tool.
 
At plugindiscounts.com (or a similar site) you can usually find a slightly better deal than through Izotope themselves.
 
Alternatives exist from Waves and Sonnox. The latter is quite pricey and requires an iLok. Other than that I don't know much about it except the Sonnox fx in general are considered very good. The Waves ones are probably the cheapest for a full suite (provided you get them during a sale) but also a little dated. Probably the most noteworthy one is Z-Noise, which has more advanced noise filtering than the older ones.
 
A free alternative you could try is Audacity, a free open source based DAW that supposedly has some pretty decent noise reduction. I haven't tried it and have heard mixed reports. Then again, you can't go much cheaper than free so probably worth ago.
 
These things mostly focus on noise reduction. For tonal quality and dynamic expansion you already have tools available in Sonar.

Sony Sound Forge includes a really nice noise-reduction plug-in. It's been around awhile, but it's a venerable tool. It's perfect for vinyl and tape - plus you get a full up audio editor in the bargain. Perfect if you don't want to go the full-boat with Izotope RX3. Demos are available.

I agree with CJ - You can't undo compression. 
 
I have Izotope RX3. LOVE what this thing can do. I've cleaned up numerous tape and vinyl  recordings. Once I learned how to use the different modules and to be patient, the thing works like a charm!

And I'll second that of all the Wave editors I've messed with Sony Sound forge would be another good pick for cleaning up tracks. I don't own it but my band mate bought a USB turntable that included Sony and I was blown away at how good a job it did of recording and rendering the albums into pretty nice sounding Waves. And best of all it did it in an idiot proof one button approach so that's why I was skeptical at first.  It even chopped each song into a separate track automatically and works the same for tapes. 
 
I use Wave lab Elements ($90)  for this stuff , but if you don't feel like spending money then try Wavosaur (free) or the demo of GoldenWave.( $60)  
You'll be able to optimize, normallize, EQ and even simple noise reduction. Just easier to work in a wave editing environment than in Sonar with stereo tracks. Most Wave editors will have access to your Sonar Plug in library too.  When done you can batch process into MP3's too. 

Thank You all for your time and recommendations. I'll have some  time at month's end to experiment, and I'm now looking forward to the task.

Sound Forge is a great tool to have.  For noise, the de-noise program works about as well as you are going to find.
 
The bad news is there is no much hope to "uncompress," or add back in lows or highs that ain't there.  You can mess around at the edges.  Note, I haven't used Cedar or the other high high end stuff, but unless you have thousands of dollars to spend on this project neither will you.
 
Besides, that is part of the analog charm.  I still love the scratches in my old vinyl I digitalize.  Wouldn't be the same song I've listened to a 1000 times.

I believe the latest version of SoundForge includes a few of the RX tools.

There are only 2 versions. RX3 and RX3 Advanced. Made by iZotope. Just make sure it's one of them
I can't remember the last packaged software I bought. Get the download and yes it works as a VST 2 or 3 plugin in Sonar.

The question is now RX3 advanced or just RX3. I will read the information, but I'd love to hear what anyone has to say re: comparison.
 
Thanks

I tried them both and I have to say they completely blow the Waves Restoration suite out of the water. I had decent results with those in the past but nothing compared to this.
 
For my purposes the Advanced version doesn't really add much. The basic version already has a lot of tools. I was afraid they'd be all one plug like with Ozone but they're separate and also include the standalone editor which is kinda nice for eliminating specific sounds with spectral editing.