Dogpile, the ground shield on Tri RCAs just ends before the it makes any physical contact with the RCA plug. It goes up as close as possible so the heatshrink has something subtstantial to shrink to so it makes a robust physical end that can be pluged and unpluged with out risking breaking the thin lead wires running up from the cartdrige. The fairly large RCA plug is not 'shielded' itself as the outside is the negative signal input. The RCA only has electrical connection with the plus and negitive connections from the cartdrige.
I used Thoms link to change my RCA to XLRs. (Thanks Thom, and for any body who may not know already, he is a great contributor to this board). Later I changed back to RCAs.
With the RCA setup the ground wire is connected to the shield at the box which is about 80% up from the cartdrige. With an XLR you can run a third wire into the XLR plug from the end of he shield for the ground which makes the already existing 'ground' lead redundant.
I hope that helps.
Terry
I used Thoms link to change my RCA to XLRs. (Thanks Thom, and for any body who may not know already, he is a great contributor to this board). Later I changed back to RCAs.
With the RCA setup the ground wire is connected to the shield at the box which is about 80% up from the cartdrige. With an XLR you can run a third wire into the XLR plug from the end of he shield for the ground which makes the already existing 'ground' lead redundant.
I hope that helps.
Terry