A totally newbie question:

I have thousands of mp3s saved to hard disc, and use Monkey's Audio to play them through my computer's external speakers. I would like to play the music through my home audio equipment. My receiver is an ancient Technics unit that will accept only analog input. My computer sound card is an equally ancient SoundBlaster 16. I've been told that this card is secretly capable of digital output (if you know the trick); but that doesn't matter, since my receiver is not digital-capable.

So I need to send analog output from my sound card to my Technics receiver, which is about 30 feet away.

I can envision getting some sort of cable that has a mini phono jack on one end (to plug into the sound card) and a pair of RCA phono jacks on the other. But I wonder what - if any - kind of cable would provide a suitable connection over the 30-foot distance (worrying about attenuation, noise, whatever).

I would appreciate any suggestions on best way(s) to connect my sound card to my analog receiver. I know very little about cabling, wireless, or other options. Also, where could I buy the needed hardware??

Thanks, in advance, for any suggestions.

The cable you mention is what you need. I do not think attenuation will be a real problem. And, you stereo has a volume control as does your computer. You cold move the computer closer.

Thirty feet is not too long for an ordinary shielded interconnect with a line level signal, but the possibility of noise and interference exists. This will depend mainly on what the signal meets along the way. Traveling parallel to any power carrying wires, even ones inside the wall, could induce hum into your cable. With that much cable, the possibility of picking up noise from high frequency sources also exist, so keeping it away from anything using much power is a good idea. I know of no way to predict results; I think you just have to try it to find out.

Thanks to both the above contributors for your comments. This is not something I have tried before, so I hoped to learn from others' experiences before jumping in.

I don't have any good options for moving the computer or the receiver, so I'll probably have to stick with the 30-foot distance for now.

Fortunately, the cable and connectors are not very expensive, so I can try it out and just see what happens.

Is there any particular type of cable I should ask for that would help minimize interference?

Can I buy it at Radio Shack, or someplace like that?

You could buy it at Radio Shack, but they are always very overpriced, so I don't know why you would

I've seen a lot of 20ft mini to RCA cables, but not 30ft. Try a google search of "30ft mini to RCA" or "mini to RCA" and see what you come up with. My experience with Radio Shack, at least the one in my neighborhood, is they are stocking less and less cables and wires. Not much of a selection anymore.

I do the same thing. You'll be much happier with something like a USB DAC. You can run a USB cable from your computer to the DAC (which is close to stereo). Length here is not really an issue as it is digital from the computer to the DAC input. Then the DAC connects to the Stereo with RCA analog inputs. There are high end DACs (e.g., Benchmark DAC-1, or even more expensive) but there are also much cheaper DACs. Some DACs are fed by SPDIF cables. You can do the same thing by running the correct cable from the computer SPDIF output to the input of the DAC.

EDIT: You'll be particulary happy with the DAC setup if you have an old, not very good sound card. Another tip, once you have the DAC setup (which should be plug and play), be sure to turn the volume on your soundcard/windows to 100% for the WAV output and Windows volume control. Have all at maximum volume and then use the stereo controls for actual volume control.

This may be a dumb question, but can the USB DACs convert an ogg or aac file to analog? I don't know much about this but am interested in getting one, but most of my files are ogg.

Your computer decodes ogg etc. to PCM, which is what the DAC takes.

I believe USB is only spec'd to 16 feet, but it is trivial to add a USB hub every 16 feet to go much farther than that.

If you go with analog signal cables, you can get a RCA to RCA connector that allows you to connect two RCA cables in series. Combine the mini plug to RCA cable with one or more stereo RCA cables and the appropriate number of connectors and you have your 30 feet.

Many years ago I tried running a long (20+ feet) cable between a SBLive card and the analog aux input on my stereo in the next room. There was so much noise/interference that you could barely hear any music even with everything turned up all the way. Maybe it was because I used a generic cable, but who knows. I didn't try buying a new or expensive one. YMMV.

If I were doing it now, it'd probably be wirelessly through an Airport Express. If you don't already have a wireless router then I'd opt for the external USB soundcard/DAC with an extra hub as mentioned earlier.

If you computer can play the file, that's all that matters. The computer software you already have "converts" the file (flac, ogg, etc.) then sends the resulting digital signals to the DAC. The DAC converts from digital to analog for input into your stereo amplifier or preamp or receiver.

I use the Benchmark DAC now, but I've also used the "stereo-link" with great success. See links to learn a little more about DACs

http://www.stereo-link.com/
http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/dac1/

Perhaps a solution like this would interest you:

http://www.mcminone.com/product.asp?catalo...%5Fid=50%2D7725

It allows you to send stereo analog line level signals up to 400 feet over standard cat-5 cable.

Thanks to all for your observations and ideas.

I will read up on some of the technologies you have suggested, and then do a little shopping to see what the costs of the various approaches might be.

One year later - - and still a newbie - - and still not connected to my home audio system.

Last year I got many kind responses on how to hook my Windows 2000 PC's old Soundblaster 16 soundcard to my old Technics home audio T-amp, so that I could play my large mp3 and WAV collections on my home audio system. The price of going to some of the suggested external DACs was ($1 - 2,000) was just too steep for me.

As the year has gone by, I've noticed some low-priced USB DACs appearing for around $100, such as the DAC Super Pro from Audio Magus. I wonder if something this much less expensive could still be a large improvement over my ancient internal sound card.

And if I decided to go with a USB DAC, I wonder if I should use USB cables and hubs to bridge the 30+ feet to my T-amp, put the DAC there, with a short analog jump into the T-amp. Or if I should risk running analog lines from the DAC over that distance. What makes more sense?

Meanwhile, I figured it is also cheaper to simply by a new T-amp than to buy a high-end external DAC. If I buy a new T-amp that has digital inputs, is there a way to port my music from my PC to the T-amp over a noise-free digital line, with no added hardware? (Yes, I know very little about all this stuff.)

What do you all think? Run an analog line from the old sound card? Or put an external $100 DAC near the T-amp, fed by a couple of USB cables hubbed together? Or put the external DAC by the PC, and send the music to the T-amp over shielded analog cable? Or spend a few hundred bucks for a T-amp with digital inputs and somehow send the signal from PC to T-amp digitally? Or something else? I can afford a $100 DAC, and/or maybe a new T-amp. But I can't spring for a high-end (thousands of dollars) DAC.

All constructive advice is highly welcomed.

I have no idea what a "T-amp" is, but if it has either a coaxial digital input or an optical digital input and your PC has the corresponding output, then you can connect up digitally with no additional hardware. If your amplifier has the necessary input but your PC doesn't have the necessary output, then you can buy a cheap soundcard with the required digital output and either use a coaxial or optical connecting lead.

Cheers, Slipstreem.

And while continuing to search for clues in related threads, I noted that someone thinks the X-Fi wireless Xmod might be a something that would work for me. Does something like that make sense for me? How does the quality of wireless audio stack up against the other approaches already mentioned? The Xmod is only about $80 for transmitter, receiver, and remote. Sounds too cheap to be any good, right?

A squeezebox-type device:

http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_overview.html

may well do what you want.

My thanks go to slipstream and to honestguv for your latest suggestions. Looks like I have a lot of distinctly different ways to accomplish this hookup. More dollars brings more convenience and, hopefully, higher-quality sound.

I'll certainly research the approaches you mentioned, figure out their relative costs, and start experimenting.

I appreciate the help!