Good definition of the CD-ROM cable here
A cable used to send audio CD sound to the computer's sound card. When
playing audio CDs, CD-ROM drives output analog sound to both a
headphones jack and external connector just like a CD player. This
method is still the way audio CDs are played on a computer, but it was
the only method available on earlier CD-ROM drives for extracting data
from an audio CD. By the mid-1990s, most CD-ROM drives could pass the
digital data over the computer's bus (see digital audio extraction).
PCs today use a standard four-pin cable; however, earlier cards and
drives used connectors with three to six pins. Finding the right cable
was a problem, and the earliest drives had no connector. An advantage
of the multimedia upgrade kits that were popular before CD-ROMs were
standard issue on a PC was that they included the card, drive and the
correct cable. In lieu of this connection, a stereo cable from the
headphones jack of the drive to the AUDIO IN of the sound card could
always be used.
![pc diagram](https://cdn.statically.io/img/i.sstatic.net/cu91u.gif)
Also early drives would have custom interfaces and sound cards would need to support multiple plugs. You could find old SoundBlasters with 2-3 cable headers. The four-pin cable has now become the standard.
![cable](https://cdn.statically.io/img/i.sstatic.net/D4WJn.jpg)