RCA Caps

I have been using the Cardas for years. I wish I could afford them for the S-Video and all my XLR ins/outs that are unused, but as you have seen they are not cheap. For the SE caps there is a brans out there that has a little knob on them, if you can I would get those as the Cardas caps can be a pain to get off on SE jacks that are close.

I purchased the generic RCA Caps from Parts Express. I can't tell the difference between them or the Cardas ones visually. I've put them on varying pieces of equipment in my mostly mid-fi solid state systems and I haven't heard a difference either way with them in place. I've put them on preamps, CD players, integrateds even on a subwoofer amp and I could hear no difference. I agree with Theo to look at the caps with the little knobs on them. The generic caps I have can be hard to remove if your RCA jacks are in a tight space.

I bought a set of 10 pair of caps from Vintage Audio Lab off of eBay for about $20 shipped. Not really sure I can tell a difference, but better safe than sorry. Especially since it was only $20.

IMO, for unused rca INPUT jacks shorting plugs are preferable to caps, although of course in many cases I would not expect either one to make any difference.

Caps will do nothing to reduce coupling of internally generated rfi/emi onto the unused input lines, from where it might couple into the signal path that is in use. The same goes for rfi/emi that may originate externally, but which enters the component via a pathway that bypasses the rca jack and then couples onto those unused input lines. Shorting plugs can help in either of those situations.

Shorting plugs should not be used on output jacks, of course.

Regards,
-- Al