The cable that connects CD-ROMs to a sound card?
 

What are the wires called that you connect from the back of your CD-ROM directly into your sound card? Sound cards have a few sockets for them, but I don't know what they're called.

I need to get a couple... can they be bought at Best Buy or CompUSA?

I honestly couldnt tell you what they are called. But I would imagine compusa would be more likely to have them than best buy, look near the hardrive cables. If there is a Fry's in your area, I am positive that they have them

Moskie, those are almost vestigial. The environment inside of a PC is not kind to analog signals. You're better off with digital audio unless the overhead causes issues.

Moskie: I'd check at some mom-and-pop computer stores/repair places first. I remember a year or so ago seeing a Belkin "Gold-Plated" CD audio cable for like $25.00!!! For a few measily wires!!

As long as you keep the cable away from capacitors you shouldn't really have any noticable sound issues. I haven't yet, and I've built many a system that didn't have issues unless the cable was run right next to a line of capacitors.

Anyway, a mom and pop shop should be able to hook you up with a couple for free or for a couple of dollars. I remember we kept a pretty good collection where I used to work.

Neekap, why do you use analog audio? I've found very few cases where it's needed. It also presents an opportunity for mistakes if you don't realize it's being used. It might not be evident with PC speakers but hook up the Sennheizers and the RFI jumps out.

Moskie, We throw the things away now though I still have some piled up. If you really want some pm me and I'll send a few.

Well if he wants to listen to an audio cd in his cd-rom he pretty much needs one doesnt he? I suspect thats what he's going to be using it for. I don't see what s so archaic abou that?

no he doesn't. All data, including audio, can be send over IDE. There are no configurational changes needed. Windows will default to digital audio.

No, the analog cable isn't needed for audio CD playback. Some old drives were incompatible with digital playback but I haven't had the misfortune of buying one of those since ~1998. Avoid the noise.

Agreed. I've only seen newer computers (Dells, etc) that can get away w/ the lack of a CD audio cable. Honestly, its a very rare thing that I ever do use my CD-Rom drives for CD audio, as I rip every CD I buy to MP3 and tuck the original away to reduce the risk of breaking, scratching, losing them.

Where's the opportunity for mistakes, anyway? My PC is used for listening to music while working and the occasional game. I'm not an audiophile, nor will I be with anything close to my current setup. My Logitech Z-340's do quite well with my current setup and I couldn't be happier.

Thanks guys, I found one at CompUSA. They're called MPC II cables, apparently.

I got this for my dad's computer, to go along with with the sound card I got him for christmas. He listens to CDs on his computer, but he was having some shitty problems. It would skip and get crappy if he started to do other things on his computer, such as (*gasp*) start loading another program. I figured it was because he had crappy onboard sound or something. Turns out he *does* have seperate sound card, but his CD-ROM drive was not connected by one of these MPC II cables. Now I'm not sure if the problem was a crappy sound card or the fact that he wasn't using an MPC II cable.

Well, I guess I'll find out!

I hear that.

I only meant that if the analog cable is attached you might not initially notice you're using analog. If it isn't attached the sound transfer can only be clean digital.

Really, there are few reasons to use analog transfer. The need mostly died when software all started supporting digital. It's fuzzy now but I recall most drives supported digital transfers by about 98. On the downside there's a very slight increase in overhead with digital since it requires data transfer on the bus normally used for file i/o. (150KB/s, or ~0.15% of a 100MB/s bus) That will slightly slow copies over the same bus, or more likely, if the i/o system is tied up with heavy activity it may interrupt the music.

glad I checked this out! I was just going to ask if I even needed to hook up my old cd-rom since I just burn everything with my plextor anyways, my only reservation was possibly missing out on something with those straight to sound card cables.....

i think i have about 20 of those things laying around never bothered to use them

Yeah, I have about 8biilionz0r of them.

I thought what these allowed you to do was use the front-panel headphone jack with the CD player. Basically it just throws the data down the IDE channel, and after it's processed, it's barfed out back up the CD-AUDIO cable, into the CD player and out the front of the drive. Most drives don't have that anymore :(

Mike, no, no, no. The needle runs around the CD and the little scratchy sounds leak out the front connector, through the tubes, straight to your ears.

:)

Drives with a headphone jack only need power and a command to start playing. There's no bus overhead beyond status checks by the controlling program. The little 4-wire MPC cable is just analog output of left, right, and one or two grounds depending on connector type.

Makes it fairly useless for anything but plain audio cd's, which I'm sure contributed to the jack's demise. Support departments would get tired of explaining things to mp3 users.