Vince,
You are asking a question a long the lines of “what kinda of car is
best” and I gurantee there will be no less than a dozen answers. I
personally use solid-works, it’s not meant to design jewelry, but for
what I do, it’s perfect!
I would suggest before you purchase any software, you look at this:
http://www.ganoksin.com/gnkurl/ep7za0
It’s 2D design software, very similar to the industry standard for
2D drawing, autocad, but it’s 100 percent free, and has great user
support, and an easy to read user manual with great starter projects,
you could start with that software in a matter of hours! If you where
to learn that software, the basic concepts will mean that you could
go to virtually any of the more expensive jeweler cad systems, and
feel right at home, or at-least have some idea what you are doing. It
also would mean that if you give CAD a shot, and you find it’s not
your cup of tea, you haven’t shelled out 1000’s of dollars.
Almost all 3D cad systems are the same, in my opinion, at least in
the basic concepts, so learning 2D, you will understand concepts like
O-snap, datum, scale.
But that’s not the say you can’t use that for jewelry. I know
several jewelers that use solid-edge 2D for jewelry, and I have used
it myself.
-Chris