A/V RCA Plug Polarity

Which part of an RCA plug is positive and which part is negative. Is the prong postive? Also, how can I figure out which of the two wires goes to each part? I am try to make adapters to plug PC satellites into my receiver without modifying the speakers themselves.

 

The outside part of the RCA is usually positive (+) and the prong is negative (-).

usually

*n

(i have no liability if things get FUBAR)

 

At least in hi-fi, the prong is signal and the ring is ground. Basically that works out as possitive for the prong and negative for the ring.

 

Great, two different answers. What is a modder to do?

 

Go to radioshack and buy the adapter...

 

I'm with naked nave the outside is (-) and the center is (+) as the stereo sockets I bought from maplin share the outer (that and I've got cables running stereo audio and composite video all share the same outer... see my ... project

 

I wired mine as outer ring (-) and the pin as (+) and nothing has blowen up or started to smoke yet

 

The outside is - because it is connected to the shield, and on signal cables (line level instead of speaker level), that is grounded to provide shielding from interference.

 

The inside is positive. No question.

 

If your making your own cable, then what does it matter? just ensure you solder the same colour wire on the same point at each end




else if extending or repairing an old wire, just lop off the other other end too and do as above for both new ends

maybe

hope of use,

 

I'll just confuse you more by saying both are positive and negative. Suffice to say that the pin is signal and the ring is ground. As to which is positive and which is negative, in reference to the ring, the pin is either positive or negative.

 

I guess he should be glad he didn't ask which was + and - on a balanced 1/4" connector or even worse, an XLR with phantom power

With speaker cable yes, with signal cable no. If you run the signal over the shielding you will pick up interference, defeating the purpose of shielded cable.

 

Depends on what kind of signal cable - for coax, yes. But for UTP it doesn't matter. (Hell, it usually doesn't matter for STP either, just make sure that the shield is grounded. But then you get into a whole lot of crap with having ground loops and to ground it at one end, both ends, or neither ends.)

You could have spared yourself all this agony by just asking which was signal.