Connecting an mp3 player to a Caiman...

[steveinspain]

OK, this will show how little I know about cables and connecting things..
My iRiver H140 has a 3.5mm optical/line output, and I want to connect up to my Caiman from that to use the DAC and bypass the dac in the iRiver.
So, what cable do I need - I can find 3.5mm to 2x RCA cables, but is that the right thing - seems wrong to me, so can you please help me out...!
Thanks !

[Themis]

If I remember properly, the I140 has an optical output. In this case, you need a cheap optical cable to plug it to the Caiman.

[Peter Galbavy]

Somethink like this: http://www.tvcables.co.uk/cgi-bin/tvcables/AD101.html

Or search for "3.5mm toslink" to find complete cables. I think these started out on Sony portable CD players, so they may be referred to that way...

[steveinspain]

Many thanks Guys !

[lovejoy]

Or better still get one of Stan's optical cables. The cable itself is designed for 'full sized' TOSLINK rather than your portable's 3.5mm connector, but Stan also keeps the correct adaptor that will fit your iRiver and allow you to connect to your Caiman using this cable. Stan's cables are of excellent quality and you won't pay much less for one if you get something cheap and nasty.

[sburrell]

I think this is the cable I use from my iMac to my 7510, no adapter required:
Ixos 108-100 "Bronze". £5.99 with free P&P.

[steveinspain]

I have just ordered a cheapo cable, but didn't even think of looking at what Stan makes - sorry Stan !
I may need to order one of yours soon...

[Themis]

I bet you don't need anything else than a £1 cable as long as you don't put any lossless to your H140 : any AAC/MP3 compression level, even the best (AAC-VBR400 er MP3-320) has artifacts waaaay worse than any optical cable difference.

[steveinspain]

Hey, its all in WAV format - none of that loss-tosh for me I'll have you know !!

[lovejoy]

Sorry Dimitri but I beg to differ.
A large percentage of my iTunes library is MP3/AAC and the difference between using the crappy cable that came with my Sony minidisc player and Stan's optical cable is VERY clearly audible. When I bought the DAC originally I wasn't going to buy a new optical cable to go with it, but I'm extremely glad I did because if I hadn't done the comparison between the cables I'd have blamed the DAC itself for sounding bright, hard and generally messy.