Section 3 Flashcards
What are RCA cables primarily used for?
“For consumer grade audio components such as turntables, CD players, and home stereo amps.”
What are instrument cables used for?
“Instrument cables are used primarily for carrying instrument level signals from instruments such as electric guitar and keyboards”
What are speaker cables used for, made of, and some examples? Are there ground lines in speaker cables?
Made of Larger gauge wires. Transmit high volte signals. No, there are no ground lines in speaker cables, as the voltage exceeds any noise that would interfere with it to a considerable degree. And also because the signal will not be amplified. Double banana, TRS, NL2 (1/4”). They use speaker wires.
What are BNC cables? What are they used for?
They consist of a coaxial cable, a central conductor surrounded by tubular insulation and a braided conductive shield covered with a rubber jacket, and a BNC connector. Coaxial cables are ideal for antennas because the distance between the hot and cold are constant throughout the cable. They can also be used for unbalanced connection.
What are XLR cables?
They are cables commonly used for microphone signal flow. They are balanced.
What are TRS cables? What part of the connector is hot and cold?
They are balanced connectors/cables that have a wide variety of uses. The tip is hot, the ring is cold, and the sleeve is ground.
Describe TT cables. What are they primarily used for.
They are just over half the size of a TRS cable with a more rounded tip. Just like the TRS, the tip is hot, Ring is cold, and Sleeve is ground. They are primarily used in studio patch bays.
What are snakes (cables)?
Snakes are large cables containing many wires and allow for multiple isolated signal to be sent through them simultaneously. They come in many combinations of connectors, and often have a multi pin connector on at least one end.
What are ELCO cables? How many conductors do they connect through? What tools are used to set them up? Do you usually wire for all of the 28 channels to be used?
They are a multi-channel set that can carry up to 28 channels of balanced audio (84 wires). They connect through one single conductor. The male connector has a screw that is fed into the female connector. A pin is attached to each wire using a special crimping tool. As the screw is tightened the in the male connector are pushed against the matching pins in the female connector. Only 24 of the 28 channels are typically wired for use.
What are DL cables? How do they differ from ELCO cables?
DL cables have 28 channels like ELCO cables. However, they are slightly different in shape, and, as opposed to being screwed, are threaded. They have a latch that you turn 90 degrees to lock. As the latch turns, the DL pins on the male end are pushed outward and lock against the pins on the female connector. Because DL connectors can be fully seated before the latch is tightened there is much less potential for it bent pins than with an ELCO. Even so, the fragile nature of the tiny DL pins makes it that you should only be connected a dozen or so times in its life.
What is a DSUB or DB25 Cable?
They can support up to 8 channels of balanced audio through a single connection(or), which is very unique.
