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RCA Shorting Plugs vs Caps non-shorting ?

I have had Cardas RCA Caps on all unused inputs in my preamp for some time. I recently bought an inexpensive bunch of gold-plated Chinese RCA Shorting Plugs on eBay (Cardas has a much more expensive version). The Shorting Plugs had a dramatic impact on dynamics seemingly reducing the noise-floor. (I seem to remember that back in the 60's/70's, shorting plugs often came with the preamps and integrated amps I had then) Are there RCA jack locations that can only be served by Caps vs Plugs? The second Preamp Out and Tape Out would be candidates for Caps vs Plugs, but all other unused jacks should take Plugs. Is that correct guys?
elunkenheimer

Showing 2 responses by bdp24

bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,109 posts
 
Good move Elunkenheimer, I did the same. A dozen true shorting plugs on ebay for ten bucks I think it was, much cheaper than the price of the Cardas plugs, which do nothing but keep dust out of RCA jacks. Big deal.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,109 posts
 
At one of the Bill Johnson in-store appearances I attended, he told the story of a problem caused by shorting plugs. ARC had sent a pre-amp (SP-10?) to Harry Pearson for review, and soon heard from him as he was having an issue with it. The problem was traced to Harry's installation of shorting plugs into the pre-amp's output jacks. Harry's lack of basic electronic engineering knowledge had once again caused a designer/manufacturer grief!
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