I'm hooking up an Onkyo Home Theatre in a box for my parents. My Dad's existing DVD player only has a digital co-axle out (no optical). I ended up buying a 6' GE digital co-axle cable ($10) but was wondering if a digital co-axle cable was just a normal co-axle cable with RCA plugs on the end?

It's just a normal coax cable. The only point is that many of the RCA to RCA cables which you would EXPECT to be coax are actually not...

Just for fun I tried hooking up a couple of different "normal" RCA-to-RCA cables from DVD to receiver and none of them worked.

I have never bought a "coax cable" i have always used a regular interconnect for the coax.I have never had a problem with them not working.

You probably pay more than $1.50 for your regular interconnects

I've seen a test (not sure where) where a guy used a coat hanger with RCAs on the end as a digital cable. It had one error. The actual cable had 2. Therefore, statistically insignificant.

Wow... no ground at all ?

SHHHHH!!!!....You're going to spoil it for all the Monster Cable guys.

Damn it Ken!!! Now we're going to start to see Monster Coat Hangars for $150 each and have to start to go through endless threads about "proper hangar break-in time".

Thanks Ken, Thanks ALOT.

Not as far as I could tell. Here's the article. This is why I will not spend gallons of dough on cables. Except for looks, and if I happen to get a really large Axiom gift certificate!

Thanks for all the responses. I was thinking the "digital coax" cable was just a regular coax with RCA ends but wasn't sure. I ended up just getting a GE "Digital coax" for $9.99. If I was going to make my own, RCA ends at Home Depot are like $3.00 a piece so I don't feel like I paid all that much more. By the way, the equivalent "digital coax" in Monster Cable was $19.99!

That's not so bad. Up here the "medium quality" monster digital coax is about $40 and "the only one good enough for your $500 receiver" is about $80. If the $80 monster cable is the only one worth using it makes you wonder how they get $40 for the crappy one

[EDIT] Just read the linked article. Looks like two coat hangers, one for signal and one for ground. That makes sense. Still interesting though -- I could *not* make a cheapo RCA interconnect work between my Sony DVD player and HK receiver.

Ken, at this time of year it's probably appropriate to also recall the heroic exploits of Mick Loney and Al Magnani in the digital wire wars.