Converting cassettes and albums to digital

I'm looking at this more to preserve some NLA cassettes and albums. So, what's your preferred hardware and software for this kind of job? If it matters, I'm using iTunes.

Thanks.

I'd have no idea of what equipment to do this, but I know of a local record shop that will transfer for a minimal fee. Been meaning to rummage through my cassettes to get some onto CD. There's quite a bit of 70's/80s rock that I have never been able to find on CDs, other than maybe some cheaply produced Greatest Hits package, but I still have the cassettes ...

I usually use Audacity (free).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000BBGCCI

ART Phono Plus; a phono pre-amp to take a record player's line-out voltage up to where something like a cd player's would be. Plus a 16-bit sampling DAC that outputs to SPDIF optical as well as USB. This guy exposes itself to your computer was a generic audio interface; software like Audacity reads that resultant audio stream and lets you record the phono or tape deck you've plugged in.

I get catalogues from Hammacher Schlemmer all the time, and they sell turntables that will convert to digital. Cassette I'm not sure.

Cassettes: Little battery powered cassette player to the sound card of my PC. Vinyl: Turn table to the sound card of my PC. Any free sound ap should be able to record, like Audacity. I really like Sound Forge to clean it all up, but it ain't free. It will do a Fourier transform on the data set and clean out the tape noise, including the tape noise from the recording studio, with the right add in. Not sure what's out there in public domain to do that.