Thanks Conan. Having read a few of the reports, seems like this little dude is a bit on the simple side, no Dolby/Cro2/metal noise reduction which is going to mean a bit of tape hiss. I don't know I really need the requirment to transfer music to the HDD, but just to listen to a few oldies whilst poling the Global Freightways B744 freighter aroung the FS2004 skies ! The hook up seems a bit odd too, a 20 pin connection through the serial port, not even sure if my board has a serial port. One write up says Radio Shack has the DIN to DIN connector lead I need to connect, as you rightly suggest, the headphone outlet of a tape player to the line in on the board. I shall give that a try first.
Cheers for now and thanks