Rca Phono - 3.5mm Jack - An Explanation Of Audio Connectors

There are many types of audio cable in use today, one of which, the 6.3mm 1/4 inch jack, dates back to the 19th century with its use in early telephone exchanges of the day. By far the two most common non-digital audio connections used are the 3.5mm jack and the RCA Phono connector. The 3.5mm jack is used by portable audio devices whilst the RCA Phono is used on larger systems such as hifi's and home cinema systems. The connectors are available in both male and female forms. The male would be a plug on a cable with the female being a chassis mounted socket on the audio device.

The 3.5mm jack has gained its popularity due to its small size. The small size has made it the connection of choice for portable audio MP3 devices. It was used extensively since the early days of the Walkman portable cassette player in the 1980's. They are also used extensively in the computer industry. Indeed almost all computers are supplied with a 3.5mm jack socket for connecting headphones and a further 3.5mm socket for a microphone. The connection is also often referred to as mini jack or even auxiliary. The term auxiliary is often used by car manufacturers when referring to the 3.5mm input socket found on many car radio's. Auxiliary is often abbreviated to aux which give another commonly used connection, the aux cable. This is simply a 3.5mm jack to 3.5mm jack and is often used to connect audio devices. A smaller version of mini jack, know as sub miniature is used by some mobile phone manufacturers, this has a smaller 2.5mm size.

The RCA, or Phono to give it another name, has been in use since the 1940's. This is a larger connector and is often used in home hifi. This type of connection is used on many devices such as televisions, DVD players, home cinema systems, amplifiers. The RCA connector can used to carry audio and video. The video element is usually carried along a yellow composite cable or green, red and blue three-way cables known as YPbPr. When used for audio the RCA phono connectors can be either red and white or red and black, the red connector carries the right audio channel and white or black carries the left audio. RCA can also be used to carry a digital audio signal using the SPDIF format, SPDIF can also be transmitted over TOSLINK optical using a fiber optic cable.