Setting up the software
September 2001
Male RCA Plug Shootout..
A DIY Deee-Lite!
Review by Steven R. Rochlin
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Audio as a true hobby provides manyoptions for the do it yourself (DIY) enthusiast. While it takes little effort tosimply buy a pre-built product and place it in your system, the rabid DIY isnever satisfied with such things. They will either build their own units or takea commercial product and tweak away. In either case, it seems that many of youout there are making your very own cables. My hopes are that this article willbe the first in a series of reviews concerning the various bits and pieces thatare available to the tweakers and home-brew DIY folks worldwide. As a professionalmusician who began soldering at the ripe old age of five, my first 'dayjob' was with none other than the legendary Heathkit Electronics of Benton Harbor, Michigan.Yes, the same Heathkit from DIY kit fame who sold, in kit form, everything fromtriple trace oscilloscopes to robots.. and of course tube amplifiers.
While this series of DIY Deee-lites will not venture into thetweaking of specific mainstream commercial products, we will be covering how topossibly improve many of the products currently residing in your musicreproduction system. Please be mindful as not all tweaks will be easy, norinexpensive. Worse still not all tweaks, no matter what the cost, are aguarantee to improve the sound quality of a components. There are synergisticfactors one must realize. Sometimes the 'sum is better than the individualparts'.
In this first DIY Deee-Lite we will be taking a look at variousRCA connectors. Since we audiophiles are generally stuck with the decades oldRCA plugs whose design is inherently flawed and leaves much to be desired. No properdesigner today would make a connector whose positive lead connects before theground/negative lead. Still, short of directly soldering all our interconnectsto components one is left using the RCA connector. Since many of you make yourown cables, it seems natural to start this series with the male RCA plug.
And The Participators Are..
From Germany is the value-priced Clearaudio MPC (28DM, orabout $15). As one expects with German precision, this connector is a no nonsensewell-made plug with unique features of its own. This is Clearaudio's budget maleRCA plug.
USA-based connector specialist Cardas manufactures a vast amountof connectors (RCA, BNC, and many for loudspeakers) has provided us with theirSRCA ($14.95). This is possibly the most luxurious looking of the bunch. Oooohla la!
Also coming to us all the way from Germany we have the mid-level WBT WBT-0147 ($17.50 each, $80 in a kit offour) and top line WBT WBT-0108 ($35 each, $150 in a kit of four). The kit offour comes in a nice display box; includes solder and Torx key. Think ofprecision German engineering gone to the Xtreme.
Another USA-based company, Canare Corporation of America, hasprovided their F-09 ($2.30) and F-10 ($2.68). Canare, while not technically anaudiophile company, has long been specializing in making many differentconnectors for the professional marketplace. They concentrate on making itemsthat work well and can withstand much use. A no-nonsense approach without goingto extremes.. or audiophillia as it were.
Lastly we have the most unusual RCA plug that is by our friendsfrom the land down under (where women glow and men plunder). Eichmann TechnologyInternational designed the quite interesting Bullet Plug ($36 for a set offour). These blokes are no drongos and even a seppo like me could surely learn athing or two from this innovative new design! One look at their Bullet Plug andsparkies like me become 'happy as Larry'.