Freefallin

I was at Radio Shack earlier to buy RCA cables for my car amplifier and I came across the labelings - Audio analog (good) / digital coax (better) / fiber optic (best).

Which one should I buy?

WhiteBird00

iTrader: (4)

You want analog RCA cables. Digital and fiber optic are specialized cables that are designed for use with home audio systems that have the specific output jacks for them. In general they are not interchangeable although I wouldn't put it past Radio Shaft to call an ordinary RCA cable "digital" just as a marketing technique. There are plenty of better places to buy RCA cables and the ones from RS aren't any better (or even different) from the ones at Walmart for half the price.

Daniel Richards

iTrader: (1)

that GOOD/BETTER/BEST is like how you have ways of hooking a Satellite receiver to the TV and it goes Coax (crap) / RCA (good) / S-video (better) / HDMI (best) but a standard definition TV or a standard definition satellite receiver aren't going to have an HDMI connection on them at all and might not even have an S-video connection, so it's not a matter of whats "better" it's a matter of what you can even USE, and I personally have never seen a headunit or car audio amp that has an output or input for a Fiber Optic connection.

Freefallin

Fair enough. So analog it is... Thanks for the info guys!

Capricio

"In theory, digital coax is a 75ohm connector specified for digital interfaces while standard RCA cables are of undefined impedance. In practice, plain RCAs will work for short digital connections and, of course, digital cables will work for analog. Also, it is doubtful that, on the digital cables, the RCA connectors, themselves, are truly 75ohms and that BNCs are the proper way to go."

...so, for what you're doing, cheapo analog RCAs are fine.

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8...91/#post261902