On a linestage I built I was struggling to understand a problem I had with one of the channels. Intermittent loss of bass and excess distortion (never completely cut out). Thought it was maybe a circuit problem, solder joint or something. Finally solved by cutting off the stupid RCA (a 4 ft. Blue Jeans Cable "LC-1") and soldering the coax straight to the PCB, bypassing all the RCA crap completely. Was done as a troubleshooting step but I just left it that way since the preamp worked perfectly after that...
@Michael C , funny enough my Marantz CD5000, i omitted the RCA jacks (used hot glue to hold wires in place) Had issues at first so used more glue lol, as the it goes from one end of the resistor to the cable
RCA jacks the AECO brand are good and appear to be geniune TE copper as i had an old pair and had to scrape the solder off to the bare metal which was copper like colour. Have to be careful with the heat with them, cheap at the time, probably gone up now
Neutriks are not bad, though i had some spin., otherwise are good if you need a larger jack, and seem to not lose the gold plating over time
Switchcraft is good, for a cheap jack,, i cut out the old and replaced with these. still good and the plating has not gone over time
Element14/farnell/ Newark have Multicomp Pro , supposed to be CU, going by the datasheet, maybe more likely a copper alloy as in case of the Switchcraft jacks maybe. I feel like getting some and cutting them to see
https://www.farnell.com/datasheets/3029661.pdf
RCA jacks the AECO brand are good and appear to be geniune TE copper as i had an old pair and had to scrape the solder off to the bare metal which was copper like colour. Have to be careful with the heat with them, cheap at the time, probably gone up now
Neutriks are not bad, though i had some spin., otherwise are good if you need a larger jack, and seem to not lose the gold plating over time
Switchcraft is good, for a cheap jack,, i cut out the old and replaced with these. still good and the plating has not gone over time
Element14/farnell/ Newark have Multicomp Pro , supposed to be CU, going by the datasheet, maybe more likely a copper alloy as in case of the Switchcraft jacks maybe. I feel like getting some and cutting them to see
https://www.farnell.com/datasheets/3029661.pdf
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The most common problem I have with my system is the shield on the RCA connector not making contact. It's just terrible. I take my system over to a meeting with some friends and connect everything only to find no music an lots of hum. It's a shame these things are so lousy. Trying to make a contact also act as the spring is a bad design, so inevitably the socket on one piece of equipment is slightly larger and stretches the wing contacts on the cable so they don't grip some other socket. I wonder if any reasonably priced cable has a separate shield contact with a spring behind it to push it in place reliably?
I have seen the locking RCA connectors. They don't have a spring but rather use a clamping effect when the body is turned. So just like an oil drain plug, it seems some guy at the club over tightens them and the rest of us are cursing the thing as we can't get it to unscrew. I have seen this result in the plug getting ripped right off the back of a multi thousand dollar preamp. I was thinking more along the lines of a gold plated copper contact that is mounted on spring steel leaf spring. So the material that is good for making contact isn't getting bend and trying to act as the spring as it is in the typical RCA plug. So there is compliance that pushes with some force and accommodates slight differences in the RCA jack barrel size on the equipment. The idea of a separate contact and spring is used in Anderson Powerpole connectors. Maybe they could adapt it to RCA jacks. Ha
@olsond3 I had some lose rca connectors once, and i slightly bent the outer contact to fit better on the rca jack. The locking rcas, i ve had those and yes, ive been there when i over tightened one, and the cheap ones i got were quite heavy in weight. I wonder how the Neutrik Profi RCA connector would go.
MaccAu: That Neutrik looks pretty good with the "spring loaded contacts". They are between $2 and $20 each, and it looks like they work. I may have to build some cables with these. PartsExpress looks to have them in stock as well. https://www.neutrik.com/en/neutrik/products/phono-rca-connectors/profi-cable-connectors
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