Is a coax cable plus RCA connectors as good as the real thing? (1 Viewer)

[Justin Ward]

Since digital cables are pretty expensive I am exploring alternatives. Now, will a standard coaxial cable plus male RCA connectors be just as good as a store bought cable? I have decided to go coax not optical either way because it will need to bend to connect the reciever and the DVD player, plus coax seems cheaper.

 

[ThomasL]

Justin,

Just buy a decent RCA to RCA coax video cable and use it as your digital audio cable and you'll be fine. There is no need to spend exorbitant amounts on what manufacturers call " a digital cable."

cheers,


--tom

 

[Justin Ward]

thanks for the response. High quality eh? I saw some nice RCA cables at the "dollar store" the other day so maybe I could....
Thanks I think I will take the coax route since I have coax cable in various lengths. Is there any guidelines I should know for buying the RCA connectors? That is how my parents have therr Technics stereo hooked up to the dish reciever and they get great sound with no hiss or distortion(and this is not even a digital coax connection it is analog RCA x 2)

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Well, a digital cable needs to be a 75 ohm cable. Audio RCA cables, even though they have the same connector type, are no necessarily a 75 ohm cable.

Video cables are supposed to be 75 ohm, so 99 times out a hundred, buying a composite cable designed to be used as a video cable will give you a cable that can also be used for digital coax interconnection.

-Vince

 

[Ted Lee]

also, take a look at the AR brand available at best-buy. they're pretty inexpensive (about a third the cost of monster) and are pretty well regarded.
i'm using some a/v cables from them and like them just fine.
i don't like the idea of using 75-ohm coax and then "attaching" another connector - seems like i'm adding another "stop-gap" in the signal.
but that's probably a bunch of hooey...i probably couldn't hear the difference anyway.

 

[AllanN]

I have a radioshack coax digital audio cable and ti works fine $15 for 6' $20 for 12'.

 

[Danny Tse]

Allan,
Do you mean these?

I use 3 of the 3 ft version as component video cables. Excellent results!