Shorting plugs


I had my spare RCA sockets on the preamp shorted and thought that I didn’t need to worry about the XLR and AES/EBU connections.Wrong assumption! Shorting the latter resulted in a significant reduction of hash and increased clarity in the treble as well as more precise positioning in the sound stage. Everything matters and as tweaks go this one is value for money.

antigrunge2

I made shorting plugs for the unused inputs of 2 battery powered stereo phono preamps (used as mono's) and the improvement in SQ  was easy to judge/hear.

The parts cost from RadioShack was well less than $1 per unit and the assembly time was approx. 30 seconds per unit after the soldering iron came to temp.

 

DeKay

Wait — I thought shorts in electrical or audio cables or equipment is bad?!  But they were the solution?   

I bought some gold ones.  Being uneducated(no instructions), I plugged everything.  Sat down.  One channel and not full sound.  Cold sweat.  It did not hurt anything.  Lucky.  Glad this thread came up.

I recently saw another thread on here discussing the same thing. Picked up a cheap pack of them off Amazon thinking "Well it was only $12. What could it hurt?" Yeah, after plugging them in and sitting down, I was in for a shock and awe experience. So much more clarity, less grain, less fuzz, more enjoyment. I'm sure some of this is gear dependent, but in my setup, that was absofreakinlutely money well spent.