Sound card matters very little...it's the A/D process you should be concerned about. If you have an A/D, run cass deck>analog>A/D>digi>sound card>HD. If not, do you have a DAT deck? The built-in A/D in those will be much better than any A/D built into a sound card; I'd go cass deck>analog>DAT deck>digi>sound card>hd. Just get something cheap and bit-perfect (Delta Dio, Hercules Game Theater XP, Waveterminal 2496) and you're good to go...