Sound Input Error

[kozikowski]

Yes, tape machines--almost all of them that I know of-- deliver flat, line level, ready to use sound. Turntables don't.

<<<line input jack method I just described sufficient enough to produce CD quality sound? >>>

Better. I captured all the vocals for a theatrical short using nothing more than a microphone in a quiet room, microphone preamplifier (with headphone amplifier) and a PowerBook. The noise floor was below -70 and I captured and saved the work as 48,000 instead of 44,100 since that's the video standard. I did not go back later and measure the harmonic distortion, but I will one of these days. I bet it's no worse than any of the USB devices.

If you're transferring analog audio tapes, all these modern specifications are going to be far better than the tape quality.

But more to the point, sound is better than no sound which appear to be your two choices.

Koz