Need audio cabling/adapter help!

[nickbuol]

I have a special situation that requires a special cable, or special set of cables/adapters.  I am wanting to hook my arcade PC AND Dreamcast to my arcade's speakers/subwoofer system at the same time.  The PC uses a 3.5mm female port, the speakers have a 3.5mm male plug, but the Dreamcast has 2 male RCA cables for audio...  Here is more specifics....


I have 2 audio inputs that need to go to a single audio speaker setup.  The speakers have a standard 3.5mm male plug.  One audio source is 3.5mm female, which is easy enough, but the other source is a pair of male RCA plugs. 
Each audio source will only be on when the other is off, and I do not need any fancy switching, I just need to get them all hooked up at the same time.  What are my options?

I was thinking something like an adapter to get the male RCA plugs into a male 3.5MM plug and then another adapter to make the male 3.5mm plug into a female 3.5mm plug.  Then I would need some sort of Y-cable with 1 female 3.5mm end and splits into 2 male 3.5mm plugs. All of this in stereo.  It would be nice if I could to it with less pieces, so please let me know if there is an easier way and what parts I would need to buy.

Thanks!

[HighNoon]

Yep,

[nickbuol]

The problem seems to be finding the Y-Adapter.  Seems like everyone makes the opposite female/male connector versions...

Oh, and for people that are reading this and thinking about soldering, HighNoon is right about soldering these small wires....  What a pain it would be.  Also, soldering small wires would probably actually create a fairly bad connection too.  In theory not as bad as all of the adaptors, it wouldn't be great.  The reason I say this is because the best connection is an unbroken wire, the next best is wires touching each other.  With such small wires, soldering them may actually put solder between the two ends of wire and thus reduce conductivity of the entire connection, thus increase signal loss and noise.  Now for the reality part of it.  This is an arcade cabinet.  This is not my home theater.  I am not expecting DTS quality sound out of my 2 powered speakers and subwoofer in my cabinet so soldering may work.

I may look at just making my own cable by taking the input and the output ends, cutting and splicing the wires, and reconnecting them.  May save on a connector or two, who knows...

Any other ideas?

[Sensei]

Had the same issues recently with my new cab.

I had hooked an XBox and a PC to the same speaker system.

I had purchased from RadioShack (now renamed TheSource since the US RadioShack took back the name from the Canadian stores....but I digress)...

1 x 1/8" stereo-plug headphone extender
 (had a female on one end and a male end on the other)
  - This is mostly because the female connections are hard to fine
    (isn't that the truth in life as a whole?)
1 x 8 RCA (Composite) female-to-wire board
  (this has 8 RCA female inputs that go to metal posts on the other side of the board)
  (I only needed 2 of them but 8 is the number they came in)

First Off
Cut the extension cable in half.
This provides you with the male connection to the PC audio and the female connection to the speakers.  (yes I know that it's cut....bear with me)

Second
Solder the loose connections you just made from the cut to the metal posts of the RCA Female-To-Posts board
The trick here is the wire from 1/8" stereo plugs only have 3 wires (not a +/- from each speaker which would be 4 wires). They have a positive from each left/right signal and a ground.  Please test out the connections to make sure you have a proper stereo signal travelling through before making your final soldering.

(I did this by hooking up a portable cd player using the RCA plugs on one end and the other I plug headphones into the female 1/8" plug I just cut)

Third
Solder both the connection from the female 1/8" and the male 1/8" to the RCA board

Fourth
Connect everything up
The console plugs using standard RCA audio cables to the female ends of the RCA Female-to-post board.  The speakers connect to the female 1/8" stereo plug.  The 1/8" male stereo plug goes to the PC.

There.
(well it worked for me).

Here's a picture