I have reached an end point in my search of this holy grail - "the mothod of transferring tapes/vinyl's to CDs / MDs". The steps are (a) Download Audacity Freeware into your PC ( Get familiar with using it © Purchase IMIC Analogue to Digital Converter with USB connection, by Griffin Technology (d) Connect the Tape source to the Stereo Minijack input of IMIC (read the user guide thoroughly) (e) Play the souce tape (f) Start recording with Audacity Software (g) experiment a bit with teh recording levels, ppreferences (an important one iis to Set input Preference in Audacity as USB port) (h) You are ready for teh big one - which is to now play the tape, record into your PC withh Audacity, (i) Edit recorded signil with Audacity (j) Burn into your CD (re-recordable is the one I use) (k) Play the Cd on your CD player adn transfer into MD with teh optical connection This is guaranteed to be the cleanest transfer you can make. When I experimented by using an analogue out from my CD player instead of Tape, adn played the burned CD adn the original adn gave blind tests, it was as goood as could be. No PC sound card can do as good a job as the 48kHz 24 Bit Griffin IMIC. It is indeed the holy Grail adn costs just 35 USD...!