One of the back burner items at my house has been to find an inexpensive way to connect my wife’s 10-Gigabyte iPod to our stereo equipment.
Yesterday, we had to go out to pickup the dress that my wife will wear at my sister’s wedding, and there was a RadioShack in the shopping center with the bridal shop. We walked into the RadioShack and walked out a few minutes later with a 6-foot Specialty Y-Adapter for which we were charged $7.99 plus tax. This is a shielded six foot cable with a 1/8-inch stereo plug at one end and two phono plugs at the other.
When we came home, I used the cable to connect my Bose Wave Radio to the iPod and put on the bonus CD from Alan Jackson’s Greatest Hits Volume 2. It sounded great to me, although I’m not an audiophile.
If you are looking for an even less expensive cable solution, try the Sony RK-G129 Audio Connecting Cable available from Amazon.com. It’s a 4.9-foot cable that has the same connectors on it. This is not the cheapest cable of this type that’s available from Amazon, but it qualifies for free shipping on orders of $25 or more. So, if you are planning to buy something else from Amazon, toss this in as well.
This mini research project was a bit of an eye opener for me. I thought that most of the cable connectors of this type were similar to the
Monster Cable Interlink solution, rather pricey at about $20. Maybe someone who reads home stereo magazines would appreciate the difference between this cable and the Sony or RadioShack-branded products, but I can’t imagine noticing a difference myself. All I care about is that the cable has reasonable shielding, so I don’t pickup electronic interference.