Problem with cassette player that feeds into Audacity

[Mark]

ok, if the deck's good then i'd recommend trying the tape in a new maxell
UR (or similar) shell, wound onto the new hubs. Some people manage to rig
up machines to do the winding-on for them, but i'm pencil/biro all the way
so far :)

There are also folks who've re-lubed tapes using leather-nourishing goop -
but my experiments with that were... er... messy... and didn't work at all.