A Couple of hours ago somebody asked me how you would go about digitizing a cassette tape.
In the short run it's simple if you are Sound Engineer like me:
* you take a Dual Channel passive direct-box
* you take an output cable which goes from RCA to quarter inch plugs
* you insert those in the direct box
* you pull two XLR cables to your mixing console
From your mixing console you send the analog audio from the subgroups outputs to one of your many digitizers and you're done.
For a home user there's a challenge; the home user first needs to get a working cassette deck, most Engineers who have been in the profession for years have at least one or two of them. Some Engineers even still have Quarter inch tape decks in running condition.
So the home user will need to buy a brand new cassette deck which has a USB output which is in fact a built-in simple digitizer.
I have a check for those, because I do not wish to play my retro cassettes again, even though they are in perfect condition. Compact cassette always sounded low quality to me.
So in conclusion, you need a running cassette deck with demagnetized Heads, new belts, a pre amp and a digitizer, then you can digitize your analog cassette tape