How to transfer DAT to Mac?

[Kathryn Woolard]

Another in the series of cries for help on audio technology:

Can anyone advise on how best to create audio files on a Mac from a Sony
PCM-M1 DAT recorder? Can it be done just with a mini-pin line-it/out cable
using, e.g., GarageBand, without sacrificing  the DAT audio quality, or must
I have a digitizer and audio software - which? I would like to be able to do
phonological analysis of the tapes sometime in the future, but the immediate
need will be to work with the recorded information for transcription and
discourse analysis (how best to do that is the second question, but there
have been recent discussions of that).

Thanks very much for any advice.
Kit Woolard