What equipment do I need to convert cassette tapes to cd's?

Question

I have a HP Pavilion dv5120vs Notebook PC.

Answer 1

If you are using a laptop, you will most probably not have a stereo input (mono mic. only). If you want stereo recordings you will need a USB soundcard. Put simply, you will need to connect your cassette player to your PC soundcard, then play the cassette whilst recording on your PC. A step-by-step guide is available at:
http://www.cassette2cd.co.uk/diy......
The recording software is the key, there are some free software downloads available at:
http://www.cassette2cd.co.uk/downloads.p...
I have used ‘Magix Audio Cleaning Lab’ and ‘Audacity’ – Audacity is particularly popular since it is free!
If you record to WAV format, expect file sizes of around 10MB per minute, or 1MB per minute for MP3 (at 128kbps).
Once you have your digital versions of the recording on your PC, you could simply burn them on to a CD (Nero burning software or similar..). If you use Magix Audio Cleaning, the software will burn an audio CD for you without needing additional software (assuming you have a CD writing drive of course!)
You can also download a free PDF version of the step-by–step guide from the download page mentioned above, the guide is complete with diagrams and screen-shots.
The only extra harware you will need is a connecting lead (RCA to small stereo jack), see the online guide for more info on this.. also see:
http://www.cassette2cd.co.uk/diy/accessories.htm for more information about external devices.
Hope this helps

Answer 2

Cassette player, audio dubbing cable, and a bit of audio editing software like Audacity (it's free, audacity.sourceforge.net).

Basically, hook up the player with cable to your PC's line-in port, and basically record your tape into the PC at whatever quality you desire using the audio editing/recording software. Edit and cut and filter songs as you see fit. Save the songs out as MP3 or WAV, burn to CD Audio with appropriate program.