[sdiy] Connector question, possibly OT

[Magnus Danielson]

From: Nicolai Czempin <nicolai.czempin at alcatel.de>
Subject: [sdiy] Connector question, possibly OT
Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 17:07:16 +0200
Message-ID: <41616724.50502 at alcatel.de>

Nicolai,

> I'm currently going through "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz/Hill 
> (and thoroughly enjoying it!).

It's a lovely book, yes.

> They make a comment about connectors:
> "The so-called phono jack in audio equipment is a nice leson in bad 
> design, because the inner conductor mates before the shield when you 
> plug it in; furthermore, the design of the connector is such that both 
> shield and center tend to make poor contact. You've undoubtedly *heard* 
> the results! Not to be outdone, the television industry has responded 
> with its own bad standard, the type F coax "connector", which uses the 
> unsupported inner wire of the coax as the pin of the male plug, and a 
> shoddy arrangement to mate the shield."

When you want cheap you get cheap, and all that comes with it!

> What exactly are they referring to? I think for the TV connector I know 
> what they mean, those standard antenna cables/connectors; I guess they 
> are the same here in Europe.
> But for the audio part, I am aware of two kinds of connectors:
> a) What we in Germany call "cinch", which normally come in red and white 
> for stereo connections, as well as a yellow one for RGB video.

The infamous "phono" plug is also known as the RCA plug. It's a bad habit
which makes these going around still. Dirt cheap is maybe the answer we are
able to understand. The more expensive onces solves some of the problems
thought.

> b) "Klinkenstecker" which come in 6.35 mm "banana" variety as well as 
> 3.5 and 2.5 mm versions, available both in mono and in stereo. From the 
> Doepfer page on the MCV4 midi/cv interface at 
> http://www.doepfer.de/mcv4.htm (the previous link in another message was 
> wrong---framesets at work again :-(), which has text both in English and 
> in German, I gather that the 6.35 mm is 1/4 inches.

This is the "teleplug". Which is not as bad as the "phono" but not really that
great either.

> So, which of these two types are Horowitz/Hill talking about when 
> discussing "phono jacks"?

The first one, the "RCA".

Personally I'm the fan of XLRs. Good XLRs is usually a good start.

Cheers,
Magnus