Buying advice needed.

HomeLAN

HomeLAN

New Member
So, I wanna run my PC speakers poolside so we can get Sirius at the water. I need about 25' of extension on two stereo minijack connections, and I don;t feel like paying radio shack $1 a foot. 2 questions:

Will a pair of 12 footers run together, with the speakers at the end, noticable degrade the sound quality?

Anybody used a good e-tailer that carries this kind of stuff and might have a reasonably priced 25' male to female extension cable in stock?

TIA.
 
May I suggest the redneck solution? This may not be an option as I don't know your equipment on hand...


Some years ago, I ran an audio cable from the PC to the tuner on my home stereo, plugged it into the AUX jacks, and voila! Napster out of my home stereo. Couple of adapters was all it took. So if you have decent home stereo speakers you don't mind moving, maybe that would solve the problem?
 
SouthernN'Proud said:
May I suggest the redneck solution? This may not be an option as I don't know your equipment on hand...


Some years ago, I ran an audio cable from the PC to the tuner on my home stereo, plugged it into the AUX jacks, and voila! Napster out of my home stereo. Couple of adapters was all it took. So if you have decent home stereo speakers you don't mind moving, maybe that would solve the problem?
Click to expand...

One issue - no tuner. My PC IS my stereo. I have good PC speakers ( 5 speaker setup) that I want to move outside, thus the need for the extensions. However, I also have outdoor speakers with standard speaker wire. I may be able to track down the terminations of those wires, convert 'em to minijack, and do it that way. I also have a pair of wireless speakers, but I'm concerned about A) bad sound quality and B) interference if I plug the transmitter into the back of my PC.

This needs to be a long-term solution, beyond my wanting to have it in place for the BBQ.
 
Oh. I'm not that loyal to a PC. I always have my component system handy. Call me a Luddite, but I want my stereo regardless of whether I'm having puter problems or not. Priorities and all that.
 
HomeLAN said:
That went by a bit fast. Which jacks, and why run cat 5 to where?
Click to expand...

The male and female minijacks. Instead of speaker wire, just use a 25' section fo Cat5.
 
SouthernN'Proud said:
Oh. I'm not that loyal to a PC. I always have my component system handy. Call me a Luddite, but I want my stereo regardless of whether I'm having puter problems or not. Priorities and all that.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was that way until my tuner/amp crapped out. It occurred to me that if I had a PC go down, I had 3 backups, but I had zero backup amps.
 
I'd use 10 or 12 guage wire, but a 25' run shouldn't be a problem. IMO you lose more audio quality simply by using a PC than you would with a 200' run of speaker wire.

P.S. You don't have to forsake Radio Shack completely for this, pick up a spool of wire and the soldier on ends and have a ball.
 
HomeLAN said:
So, I wanna run my PC speakers poolside so we can get Sirius at the water. I need about 25' of extension on two stereo minijack connections, and I don;t feel like paying radio shack $1 a foot. 2 questions:

Will a pair of 12 footers run together, with the speakers at the end, noticable degrade the sound quality?

Anybody used a good e-tailer that carries this kind of stuff and might have a reasonably priced 25' male to female extension cable in stock?

TIA.
Click to expand...

To the first question, if the amps at the pool end (if I understand your setup) it will be fine for a bunch of folks partying by the pool. An audiophile might piss and moan about signal loss, but it won't be that significant.

As for the second, I'll look when I get home. I have some links to stuff like that.
 
chcr said:
To the first question, if the amps at the pool end (if I understand your setup) it will be fine for a bunch of folks partying by the pool. An audiophile might piss and moan about signal loss, but it won't be that significant.

As for the second, I'll look when I get home. I have some links to stuff like that.
Click to expand...

That's what I needed to know. If I run 2 12' extensions to each side of the woofer/amp, it won't do a hell of a lot of sound damage. Cool. As for thr audiophile pissing and moaning, it's poolside, fer Chrissake. Go home and listen in your studio if it bothers you that much. I just didn't want it to be too dirty.
 
I never piss and moan too loudly about someone else's system...unless I'm asked or I know them very very well.

Then again, I am the Polite Audiophile. :D
 
You don't happen to have a Sirius antenna around there unused do you? I could easily bring my plug-and-play tuner over to either shorten the cable run or use the FM transmitter, but it would be too much of a pain to undo how I've got the antenna mounted (the spider webs do such a great job of holding it down) to bring it too.
 
Actually you only need 25' on the cat 5. There Are 8 wires there. ;)
I've got a 2.1 set running that way with just one 1/8 stereo jack on each end
and still have 5 wires left. :swing:
 
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