Please Help!What is an "Rca cable"-really-seriosuly informative questions

[anyuse200]

On this monday night I was planning on hooking up my computer to my home theater system- the yamaha rx-v2600 and sbs-01 7.0 system with a 16-46 Pl plus.

I had purchased a pair of camcorder cables from impact acoustics to accomadate 6 of the 8 channels needed and I would need to split a stereo connection to an rca plug.

Which leaves me to questions, I realized that my sonicwave 6 feet rca audio/video plugs would not be long enough. After speaking with an audioholics staff member, I realized audio quality shouldn't suffer too much under 20feet and of course impact acoustics makes good cables.

I was thinking to myself, I have 12 feet of component video cables that I may not use due to hdmi/dvi-hdcp(I may end up using it though)- from impact acoustics.
What I am trying to figure out is(note: a 3.5mm to female rca adapter means that I would need twp male rca plugs)

What is an "RCA" plug, I mean isn't a composite "rca" plug from impact acoustics the same as a "component" "Rca" plug, and all those subwoofer interconnects considered "Rca" plugs. Couldn't I use anyone of them for audio.
I know that component vs. composite means that component uses 3 seperate plugs for red,black,and greed.

But a composite rca plug, if I buy 3 of them and plug into a component video, then what would the problem be?, is there a differnce to what impact acoustics is selling. The confusion results from- for example whether a sonicwave audio/video internconnect would be better than using a component velocity cable. Now Impact acoustics sells Sonicwave "composite cables". But all of these are "Rca cables" right?

What about SP/DIF, could any high quality cables be sutiable for sp/dif- and "rca" cable that's 750hm. Note that they say SP/DIF has limited bandwidth for the new DTS-HD formats, what does that mean, that all rca cables would be obsolete, I mean what is the bandwidth for an "Rca cable.

Someone please help!, I don't want audio quality to suffer but I am seriously lost- I have an creative x-fi elite pro that I am hooking up to my receiver- a yamaha rx-v2600 in which I plan to use all 8 channels-7.1. The elite pro has some high quality dacs and is probably 24 times-200 times more powerful than most sound cards(20x more power than the audigy2).

Would a sonicwave 3.5mm to 2 female rca holes affect performance?

 

[MDS]

'RCA' cable is just convenient shorthand for any coaxial cable that is terminated with an RCA plug. Component, Composite, 'Digital Coax', and Audio cables are all the same thing and can be used interchangeably.

 

[anyuse200]

So I can interconnect cables

For example. if I substitute a velocity component audio cable 12 feet instead of using let's say a sonicwave 6 feet cable, then it would be okay? I still don't get the bandwith issue of sp/dif. For example there isn't enough bandwidth in sp/dif to accomadate dvd audio so people use a receiver's multi-channel in, thing is- though aren't they using "rca" cables in the multi-channel in.

 

[Audioholics]

Component, Composite, 'Digital Coax', and Audio cables are all the same thing and can be used interchangeably.

Just be aware that most composite and component video cables (good ones) are made of coaxial cable (single copper wire) while most audio cables are a stranded wire. Over long distances and for different purposes there is a difference in terms of loss - especialy for video. If you are talking about a 1m interconnect you can pretty much interchange them and be fine.

 

[MDS]

For example. if I substitute a velocity component audio cable 12 feet instead of using let's say a sonicwave 6 feet cable, then it would be okay? I still don't get the bandwith issue of sp/dif. For example there isn't enough bandwidth in sp/dif to accomadate dvd audio so people use a receiver's multi-channel in, thing is- though aren't they using "rca" cables in the multi-channel in.

S/PDIF is the protocol used for transmitting the data. In the case of coax digital connections, the s/pdif spec also describes the physical interface. For optical connections, the physical interface is Toslink but the data protocol is still s/pdif.

The bandwidth issue is not because of the 'rca cable'. In the context of your question, bandwidth refers to the data rate; ie how many bits per second must travel down the cable. The s/pdif protocol was not designed to carry the high bit depth / high sampling rate data of dvd-audio or sacd.

 

[anyuse200]

Just be aware that most composite and component video cables (good ones) are made of coaxial cable (single copper wire) while most audio cables are a stranded wire. Over long distances and for different purposes there is a difference in terms of loss - especialy for video. If you are talking about a 1m interconnect you can pretty much interchange them and be fine.

Even if the cable if from impact acoustics, I was thinking of getting a 24feet velocity componenet cable, or just a 12 inch sonicwave "rca" cable to run audio. My second quesiton is, will a 3.5mm stereo to two "rca" female adapters- affect sound quality(the sonicwave one from impact).

 

[danglerb]

Even if the cable if from impact acoustics, I was thinking of getting a 24feet velocity componenet cable, or just a 12 inch sonicwave "rca" cable to run audio. My second quesiton is, will a 3.5mm stereo to two "rca" female adapters- affect sound quality(the sonicwave one from impact).

I'm not real sure I understand what you are asking, but I will take a swing.

A 24 ft component video cable, and a 12 Audio cable can work just fine since both are darn close to the speed of light you wouldn't notice much lipsync error unless you ran the video around your state.

3.5mm stereo to two RCA is fine also. What tends to stink is the quality of the 3.5mm socket on the back of a PC etc. that you plug it into. Ground connection is often VERY poor, and that can give you noise. I played with one last night and got no joy at all from it.