Advice for best sound quality

[MFrost]

New picture attached below.

I have a PC with a “XONAR Essence ST Extreme Music” sound card and want to connect temporarily to some fairly cheap “Logitech Z337” speakers & sub combo but still get the best sound quality I can.

I currently have a AUX cable going between my speakers and the sound card with a 3.5mm to 6.35mm converter into the headphones output on the sound card. This only allows me to output sound to my speakers when my PC is set to output to Headphone mode. I don’t know if this is compromising on sound quality or not.

Specifications of the soundcard and speakers below:

Sound Card I/O below:
Analog Output Jack:
RCA jack *2 (Front R / Front L), 6.30mm jack*1 (Headphone out)
Analog Input Jack:
6.30mm jack *1 (Shared by Line-In/Mic-In)
Other line-level analog input (for CD-IN/TV Tuner):
ux-In (4-pin header on the card)
Digital S/PDIF Output:
High-bandwidth Coaxial/TOS-Link combo port supports 192KHz/24bit
Front-Panel Header:
Shared by Headphone out / 2 channels out /Microphone in
S/PDIF Header:
Connects to compatible graphic cards for HDMI output

Speakers I/O below:
3.5mm (AUX) input: 1
RCA (Red,White) input: 1

In what situation would I get the best sound quality. Mostly for listening to 360kb/s MP3 or FLAC.

Many thanks for any help!

 

[Marsman]

For speakers you should use the red and white RCA connectors. An adaptor cable was included that allows a 3.5mm jack to be connected to these.

You can get them if you don't have that anymore. 2x RCA to 3.5mm socket.

 

[MFrost]

For speakers you should use the red and white RCA connectors. An adaptor cable was included that allows a 3.5mm jack to be connected to these.

You can get them if you don't have that anymore. 2x RCA to 3.5mm socket.

I'm not sure I understand what direction you're suggesting i do that? I've taken a picture and given some options that i could possibly have. (see original post).

 

[Marsman]

Sorry. Perhaps should have explained a little more clearly.

I was thinking the speakers would have just a standard 3.5mm cable for connection. Been a while since I had 2.1 speakers, when they just had a single 3.5mm cable to connect. Xonar Essence cards come with an adaptor that allows a 3.5mm cable to connected to the red and white RCA connectors.

Essentially, it's the same as A or C. Red and white RCA out on the Xonar Essence to the speakers.

Either use a 2x RCA to 3.5mm cable as in picture A; or use 2x RCA to 2x RCA as in picture C. Doesn't really matter which one you use.

 

[EsaT]

If sound card has RCA outputs and speakers RCA input using full RCA cables all the way would be best technically.
Simply because of best signal separation of channels.

 

[rids57]

C