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February 2, 2010 - 7:47pm
#1
Question about a largely ignored cable
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I have a "pair", or should I say Y, I dunno of this:
http://www.musicdirect.com/product/83270
or try this along with some RCA interconnects of your choice:
http://www.musicdirect.com/product/72797
Thanks, that's close...but no cigar.
I need a female stereo-mini, not a male. But I'm getting close now. I'm looking through that vendor's other offerings to see if I can find the right one, with no luck so far. If you find one from that or another good vendor, please share.
Would throwing one of these: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102671&clickid=prod_cs into the mix suffice? Or is there a better alternative?
Good quality female 3.5mm stereo to RCA male cable is hard to find. You may have found the best but not optimal solution with the cable from MusicDirect dbowker found and the 3.5mm stereo coupler you found.
These devices (and similar) are so commonly in need these days that I was considering having a Chinese manufacturer of such things design one principally made of quality brass (for the bending contact bits) and tellurium copper (for the solid unmoving contact bits). This would end up being about $12-15 retail for the single connector, but properly built, it could accommodate connectivity to decent cable types and decent designs.
For example, designing a replacement, these days for the ubiquitous cheap RCA jack 'blocks' that the mid-grade companies use in all their gear, would not be all that expensive and it would be a perfect drop in and instantly upgrade the sonics of all this mid grade gear out there.
Instead of taking a NAD, Rotel, Yamaha, Denon, Marantz etc unit and attempting to retrofit better $10 EACH quality RCA's into the chassis, with lots of physical retrofit issues, instead, get 90% of the way there in sonic terms, maybe more.... and design proper RCA Jack Block (up to 6 RCA female connectors in each plastic block) for far less outlay in cash and these days, with plastic extrusion and machinery being what it is expense wise, it would be far easier and far less expensive than you think to 'do it right' (ie, design, build, and sell the damn things) at a decently low price.
The problem is that there are MANY different designs and someone would have to put in the time to come up with a near universal interface type. Not easy but not incredibly difficult, either. But, in my defense on this idea, there are a few types (slight variations but all the same in these areas) with specific spacing and connectivity and screw mount considerations that have remained 'standards' for nearly 20 years.