We recently fielded this question on AllExperts.com:
You can definitely find places that offer this service, such as our studio. http://sound-o-mat.com/transfers/ for more info.
If you want to do it yourself, you basically need a soundcard that you can hook the line level of a cassette deck up to, which usually means a cable to convert the two red/white RCA plugs to a single 2mm mini-plug that goes into most soundcards, then you'll need sound-recording and editing software. There's a lot on the market and some is quite expensive, such as Sony's SoundForge or Adobe Audition, but we recommend Audacity, which runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, and will do most of what you need.
You then need to play the cassettes, record them, edit the files, clean up the tape hiss and any other noise or artifacts, then you can burn them to CDRs. There are also many popular CDR burning programs, such as Nero and CDRWIN. It's up to you.
While this deals with vinyl to CDRs, you can also read this article, which will explain some of the details involved in converting any format to digital and then burning CDRs:
We recently fielded a long list of questions from a gentleman who wanted to buy an "AM/FM Radio with a CD Player either built-in or separate and a Surround Sound system for his new house, which had capped access built-in."
It was an interesting question if only because it was so long and confusing and contained a lot of information, but none of it was relevant to setting up a proper Surround Sound environment.
The most obvious problem was these "capped access" things that he kept mentioning, without bothering to say whether the access panels (?) or mount-boxes (?) had some kind of plug: co-ax, RCA cable plugs, or hook-ups for bare wires. Without this info, the detailed list of all the plugs and how one was for a sub-woofer (which he decided he didn't need) was pretty much just wasted time.
But the real problem was that although this person came across as fairly intelligent, or at least able to compose a question with proper grammar and spelling, he completely misunderstood what Surround Sound is. Hence this posting.
The short version is that Surround Sound is a way to take four, six, or eight channels (the latter two known as 5.1 and 7.1, where the ".1" part refers to a channel dedicated specifically to a sub-woofer and nothing else) and have the sound come out of multiple speakers, usually two or four on the floor and two or four "Satellite" speakers that you hang from the wall and which tend to handle upper frequency sounds only (which are very directional; the bass from a sub-woofer is non-directional) and get the effects of being, well, "surrounded" by sound as in the movie theaters that use Dolby or THX systems.
So what was the problem? It's that you need to have recordings that are actually encoded in some kind of Surround Sound format for this to actually "work", other than to just pump sound out of more than one or two speakers. And guess what? AM/FM radio is mono, not even stereo, and just about every CD manufactured is stereo (interestingly enough, due to the Sony/Philips CD specs, there's no way to record a mono CD, which is too bad, as it would double the amount of recording time, and is a feature Sony's MiniDisc standard supports.)
The earliest version of this were vinyl records recorded using "Quad Recording", which I'll be writing more about in a series of posts about the evolution of Surround Sound.
I'll write more later about Dolby's "Pro Logic" encoding, which was supposed to supply four channels as well, and did so slightly better but still nowhere near useful, and what Surround Sound is today. But back to the original point of this post: Surround Sound is for media that is encoded to use it, and that currently consists of maybe a handful of audio DVDs and about half the movies filmed in the last 10-15 years on DVD that use one of the Dolby multi-channel systems.
To hook up a mono AM/FM radio, or a stereo CD player, to more than two speakers is just a waste of time, money and effort, unless the speakers are in different places in the house or such (I have sound wired to four different rooms in mine.) But you're just not going to get any "surround" effect from a mono or stereo signal, period. It's that simple. If you want to build a Home Theater setup and buy DVDs that support Surround Sound, go for it, but to ask this about any kind of music media at this point is completely senseless. Unfortunately, that's what I had to explain to the guy, and I suspect he's just going to get pissed-off thinking I'm talking down to him or just because he didn't get the answer(s) he wanted. Which cracks me up - we're always amazed at the studio when we're working with clients or fielding questions, and you give them an honest, real answer, and just because it's not what they want to hear, they get angry. Fortunately, we've no problem just booting those people or refusing to work with them (or answer their questions.)
So at some point I will try to write up an interesting history of the evolution of Surround Sound, or more likely just find one on the Web and post a link to it, but in the meanwhile, at least know this about Surround Sound: if the media you're playing isn't encoded for it and carrying all the extra channels of audio, it's a moot point and a waste of effort. It's really that simple.
I've been registered as an "expert" since getting approved by AllExperts.com a few months ago. You can read answer I (and my fellow experts) have written on various subject areas, so if you're looking for information or just to educate yourself in one or more of these subject areas, I highly recommend reading past answers, and if you have a question, feel free to submit one for me there. I respond in 1-3 days, as time permits.
Here's the areas in which I write responses to questions:
MIDI and Computer Generated Music
It's a better forum to ask questions rather than contacting us, as we reserve direct contact for clients, but if you ask at a AllExperts.com, we'll definitely do our best to get a decent answer to you in a couple of days.