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pburani · Jan 18, 2005, 02:34 PM

I play all my music off my laptop. Currently the arrangement of my living room requires that I use a 30-ft cable to hook it up to my receiver. So I went and invested $50 in a thick cable with gold-plated connectors. Problem is, this cable is RCA-to-RCA, so of course I've got to find a mini-plug adaptor to pipe it out of my laptop.

Just as a test, I tried an RCA-to-mini cable that I had lying around, a crappy $3 one (and equally crappy couplers). I tested it one some low-sampled (96kbps) electronic music, so that distortion would be very apparent. And in fact, there was noticeable room for improvement in the sound quality. So I went to Radio Shack and got a better cable, a Monster Mobile RCA-to-mini (MSRP $20), and some high quality couplers. With the new setup, I was expecting better sound--maybe not perfect, but better! But instead, there was no improvement.

What gives? Is there something I'm overlooking--or maybe a better way to go about this? (e.g. using an RCA-to-mini splitter instead of an actual cable?)

Thanks!
Paul

walt17 · Feb 1, 2005, 08:56 PM

There may not be a solution with your setup. 30ft cables add resistance and effect performance no matter how good the quality. Better connectors can't help that. If you are getting your audio from a phone jack, rather than a line out jack, it probably can't handle the load. I suspect you are going to have to rearrange things. Or live with the low quality.