not cringing at all, if the cassette deck is top notch there's potentially some analog warmth to be gained.
As has been said, you just need a nice DAC. I like my simple, mid-fi solution, a Dragonfly Cobalt. It's basically a USB powered dongle and has a simple 1/8 out you can run 1/8>RCA into your recording deck. The Dragonfly Red is nice too, but to me the Cobalt is way more transparent but retaining a tinge of warmth. YMMV.