What is the best 3.5 to phono cable

[admin_exported]

I am planning to rip my CD collection onto my computer and wondered what cable I should buy to connect my PC to my office stereo which consists of a pure DAB tuner, cyrus amp and quad 11L speakers? Does the cable make a big difference here or does the limitation of MP3 format make it not worth it? Also would I get reasonable sound from Internet radio on this setup?

 

[Anonymous]

The most important thing is that there is a decent sound card - the equivalent of the pre-amp / processor in the PC as this will determine the sound quality that goes out to your main amp. Rubbish sound-card = rubbish sound. My iPod sounds much more musical than my laptop down the same cable. Shame I can't do much about it in the laptop! But you can in an office desktop. I don't think you'll notice much difference in the cables, it's more a case of whether there is much quality in the signal to start with.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for reply. Have you considered an off-board sound card for you laptop? There are a number on the market and usually connect via USB so your internal sound card is not used at all. Creative's Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio Notebook connects via the ExpressCard so there are a number of options out there.