I was going to buy an mp3 player and run it through an rca jack. Right now my deck has a mini rca jack in the front, so i have a silver converter to a 3.5mm input and a gold plated cable going to the mp3 player.

I cranked it and it sounded like utter compared to my cd's (its a mp3 disk so its the same bitrate)

Im just wondering..if I were to get the correct Pioneer ipod adapter(the 125$ one that lets you see whats playing on your ipod from your deck), would it be better quality?

I was really disappointed by the SQ i was getting, but im REALLY tired of burning cds.

 

Pioneer Ipod adapters use the head units DAC instead of the ipod's built in DAC. It sounds MUCH better with the ipod dock vs AUX input.

 

If I were to get a deck that had a front usb hookup, would it be the same quality as the adapter?

 

Yep. It also depends on the deck and its DAC's too.

 

And make sure when you're listening to it thru your setup now you have the ipod (mp3 player) cranked and the deck turned down at first..then go up from there to get the best sound out of what you have