I am an amateur trying one of my first audio projects and am running into complications. I did a search, but didn't turn up anything that seemed applicable. I have an external drive that I have loaded all my CDs onto. I tried playing music through a wireless music bridge made by Logitech, but it the sound was broken up since the reciever is in another room. Then I ran speaker wire through the basement figuring I could put RCA plugs on the stereo receiver end and a headphone plug into my computer. However, a test, involving soldering etc led to bad sound quality and feedback. Things are getting frustrating. Can I buy 100 ft of RCA cable somewhere? Am I doing something wrong in attaching my connectors? Is there a good way to do this, or should I just order an Airport and try that?
Generally ... trying to get the job of transport of high resolution, high bandwidth, multi-channel audio without wires = difficult to impossible without expensive equipment.
As for long analog wires, you would have much better luck and results with balanced as opposed to unbalanced lines. This is the way the pros do it = a twisted pair (signal + & - ) shielded to keep exteranious noise off the line. Long unbalanced ("RCA" connected cable) will have serious quality questions, the least of which may be external noise encroaching on the signal resulting poor quality ...
If you will want more from your system than just the playback of your stored audio files from your external hard disc drive, you might consider getting another inexpnsive computer rather than throwing hundreds of dollars toward long analog or digital cables ... and network / connect the two computers together WiFi wirelessly.
Example: I just brought home from the office an old Apple Cube computer with the intention of using it as a "media server" for my home audio equipment ... value between US$50 and US$150 ... it has both USB and FireWire ports for external hard drives, DVI video port for the bigger TV screens, a DVD player built in and with iTunes and an internet connection I will be able to play all manner of music, ripped and/or stored on drive or CD or DVD-A disc, downloaded, or Internet radio broadcast. The only expensive part will be a decent Audio DAC for the interconnect to the other equipment.
As for long analog wires, you would have much better luck and results with balanced as opposed to unbalanced lines. This is the way the pros do it = a twisted pair (signal + & - ) shielded to keep exteranious noise off the line. Long unbalanced ("RCA" connected cable) will have serious quality questions, the least of which may be external noise encroaching on the signal resulting poor quality ...
If you will want more from your system than just the playback of your stored audio files from your external hard disc drive, you might consider getting another inexpnsive computer rather than throwing hundreds of dollars toward long analog or digital cables ... and network / connect the two computers together WiFi wirelessly.
Example: I just brought home from the office an old Apple Cube computer with the intention of using it as a "media server" for my home audio equipment ... value between US$50 and US$150 ... it has both USB and FireWire ports for external hard drives, DVI video port for the bigger TV screens, a DVD player built in and with iTunes and an internet connection I will be able to play all manner of music, ripped and/or stored on drive or CD or DVD-A disc, downloaded, or Internet radio broadcast. The only expensive part will be a decent Audio DAC for the interconnect to the other equipment.
For these distances your best choices would be either to get a (cheap) digital (coaxial) out card, then get either RG59 (TV) coaxial cable, solder two RCAs on it - using the PC to output digital to the receiver, or get an wireless TV sender/receiver to pass the digital signal in your house (PC to TV sender...........TV receiver to audio receiver).
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