transfer cassette tapes to Vista notebook?

Hello,

I am trying to transfer some cassette tapes to a vista notebook to be burned to an audio CD. I have a 20+ year old Denon tape deck. I have a y connector running from the output rca jacks on the tape deck to the mic jack on the notebook. I attempted to record using Windows Sound Recorder. It worked, but the quality was bad - sounded distant and a little distorted.

Any advice would be appreciated. Do I need different software? My notebook doesn't have an audio line in jack, just the mic jack. Should I have a USB interface of some kind for the line from the cassette deck? The Denon doesn't seem to have a volume or level control for the output, it has input level and bias fine controls.

Thanks,
Joe

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