Hi Arkie, you may be aware of an online 'underground' community of amateur enthusiasts Audiophile Vinyl rippers.

These guys use scarily expensive high end Turntable gear,
seek out the best available pristine LP pressings
and work in near operating theatre clinical dust free conditions..

The most respected rippers have developed judicial when necessary use of noise cleaning software
into an artform.

Their standards and end results are arguable better than commercial CDs
released from needle drop transfers
when original master tapes have been lost.

So yeah, that kind of software can be an essential tool
even though too many recent Big Record Lable CD remasters have given it a bad reputaion.