I am wondering if anyone knows of any good 1/8" (3.5mm) to RCA cable. I have been searching for a good one for years, and while I can find speaker cables that cost hundreds of dollars, I can't find a single good 1/8" to RCA cable anywhere not for any price! Best I found so far were locally at Best Buy, a Belkin IPod cable, and a Monster one also designed for IPod. Before the IPod existed only those even cheaper ($2.99) cables were sold for hooking up your portable CD player to a stereo.
The computer industry advertises you can hook up your computer to your stereo, and that's what they have designed it partly for. Some pretty hi end sound cards use them. Obviously they can't stick 6 RCA connectors on the back of a PCI slot. Next best thing are the rack mountable breakout boxes that have 1/4" and XLR connections on them, but those are a bit expensive. So why can't I find a GOOD cable out there? I would expect 30 different brands I could pick from.
Part of the problem may have to do with the fact that I can't think of how to really make a good 1/8" connector in the first place. The biggest problem I have found is that when you have 5 1/8" outputs on a sound card all right next to each other, two of the larger connectors fit (as found on the Belkin and Monster cables) however slightly bending the jacks soldered on the PCB. Three connections next to each other? Your out of luck. The only connectors that fit at least side by side are those very slim cheap $2.99 cables.
After probally 6 years of using crappy (and only recently the last year or so with the new Belkin and Monster cable) I finally got a new receiver that has a coax digital input. Bought a new sound card with an RCA digital out and waiting on my Blue Jeans cable to arrive. I give up on analog 1/8".
