I recently bought a Mac Powerbook with enough computing power to seriously
consider transcribing my LP collection to digital (most likely Red Book
CD's). Never having done any type of audio mastering before I would
appreciate the opinions of some of you more knowledgable that I about a few
specifics:

First, Macs do come with a line level stereo input. Presumably this works
OK but how does it compare with any of the low to mid level external A2D
harware that is available ? If external harware is the way to go, what are
the recommendations?

Second, how do the various digital editting software for Mac OS X compare
(again suitable for home use, not pro) ?

Thanks