Audio Cables

There are many kinds of audio cables. We will only cover some of them here - the ones used by ARTC.

An audio cable usually conveys analog electrical signals through cables made of copper wires. Digital cabling is rarely used by ARTC (currently) except of computer interfaces. We will put off talking about those for now.

A cable is usually described by the following attributes:

• The length of the cable (often given in feet or inches)
• The connectors (ends) of the cable
• The number of channels in the cable (Mono or Stereo)

Length of Cable

• Very Short - a few inches to about a foot
• Short - a few feet long
• Medium - between 6 and 10 feet
• Long - more than 10 feet
• REALLY long - something that can stretch across a stage or longer

Cable Connectors

This is the heart of cable descriptions. A cable connector is usually described by

• The diameter of the metal part of the connector
• Its shape
• Its sex (male and female) - this is left as an exercise for the reader.

Since there are two ends of a cable it can have completely different connectors on each end.

Let's look at some connectors

Phono Connectors

Phono connectors are the most common connectors for analog audio that connects one audio processor to another.

RCA Phono

The RCA phono connector was invented by the company RCA to connect phonograph players to other sound equipment. It is mostly used with non-professional equipment (home audio). ARTC does not use this connected much but in the past we used it with some "home equipment" (like cassette players and CD players).

Male end Female end

1/4" Phono

This is the most commonly used analog phono connector in professional audio. It is sometimes just called a "phono plug".

Male end Female end

(Please note that the just the ends on the left of each picture are the 1/4" Phono ends!)

1/8" Phono

Also called a 3.5mm phono, it was originally invented for small, portable home audio devices it has become very popular in some parts of professional audio because of its convenience.

Male end Female end

XLR Connectors

Used a lot in professional audio. These are used to connect microphones to mixers, and the snake, and can be used to connect speakers.

Male end Female end

Speaker Connectors

There are a lot of ways to connect speakers and this can be complicated by the fact that some speakers have built in amplifiers and some do no. If speakers have their own built in power they are often connected by normal audio cables such as XLR cables and phono cables.

Bare Wire

Annoyingly enough this is one of the most common ways of connecting an unpowered speaker to an amplifier. The bare wire cable is two separate wires that are encased in the same cable together. This cable can be split apart to go into the posts on the amplifier and the speaker.

Split speaker wire: Bare wire connector on a speaker:

There is a difference between the two sides of the split speaker cable. Sometimes the casing for a wire has different colors: red and black. Sometimes the casing has an extra pale white stripe along the length of the wire. This can be very subtle.

It is important that the speaker cable is connected so that the same orientation is used for both speakers going from an amplifier. It is recommended that the marked side of the cable (the red one or the one with the stripe) always be connected to the red terminals on the amplifier and the unmarked side of the cable (the black one or the one without the stripe) to the black terminals.

This is easier to do if the speaker and the amplifier supports banana plugs.

Banana Plugs

The female style of the banana plug, the one that in mounted on the speaker and the amplifier looks like this: The male end like this:

The male banana plug is often a stand-along adapter where you can attach the bare wires by screwing them into the plug. Remember: red for the marked side of the wire and black for the unmarked side.

Speakon

We do not currently have any Speakon connections. This section will be improved later.

Channels of a Cable

Most of the cables are any mono or stereo. The mono cables carry the signal for one channel and the stereo cables carry signals for two channels.