Why don't you use a microphone and plug it right into your soundcard? My old Soundblaster AWE64 came with software to make .WAV files of unlimited length. Wouldn't recording straight to digital solve your tape speed problems? If you want amazing fidelity and practically no distortion, you should go to a musical instrument store and rent/buy the best microphone they have and a PA board. Plug that directly into your sound card and record. Make sure you keep the volume low on the board so that you don't overdrive the analogue input on the computer.