Usefulness of new cabling

[fredphelps]

I'm finally getting a soundcard soon. I have a few decent pairs of headphones I'm going to use, however the soundcard doesn't happen to have a headphone output. I currently have some extremely poor and low-end cabling that possibly came with some audio product some day or something, and some old Akai receiver/tuner. I'll not be able to get a headphone amplifier, but I think the receiver's headphone amplifier is enough to power my headphones for now, as they're not incredibly high-impedance. However, its RCA inputs don't seem very high-quality, they're not gold-plated or anything. I'll be able to get some half-decent cabling though, but I'm not sure how useful they will be in case the receiver sucks. Is it really worth it?

 

[rickcr42]

I am not sure i am following but you seem to be asking if you can hook up headphones to your Akai receiver but that the receiver only has RCA outputs ??????

If it has a headphone jack just jack the cans in.If not you will need an adapter from the speaker outputs to your headhonesor a headphone amp from the line outputs or record outputs.
You can try an RCA-to-Phone Jack adapter but if it works or not is an unknown until you try it but it would be better to see a schematic to see just what the drive level of the line stage is

 

[fredphelps]

Um, no. I can connect everything, that is not the problem. What I meant to ask is whether better cabling would, in my case, actually make a substantial difference.

 

[rickcr42]

depends on how bad or even if your present cables suck.
A really good set can be made for a very small amount of money and if this is important to you then maybe a trip to the DIY forum to check out the DIY cable sticky will give you some answers.
One thing about having a quality part in an average system is that it is one less thing to worry about as you set out to upgrade the rest so always a good idea to obtain the best you can afford in each individual thing before addressing the next "weak link" in the signal path.


Having good headphones and good cables is only a plus no matter what.