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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
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,097 posts
 

 

At one appearance Bill Johnson of ARC made in a dealer’s shop near me, he told the story of getting a call from Harry Pearson, who told Bill the new pre-amp he had received was defective. Bill asked Harry a few questions, and quickly learned the cause of the pre-amp malfunctioning: Harry had installed shorting plugs into the output jacks of the pre-amp. Duh!

 

antigrunge2 OP
1,463 posts
 

As I am only shorting inputs the warning on shorting RCA outputs is certainly apposite, thanks to all

curiousjim's avatar
curiousjim
5,115 posts
 

@antigrunge2 and all

What do shorting plugs do and why should I try them?

Thanks

antigrunge2 OP
1,463 posts
 

They are shorting the positive and negative poles on unused inputs thereby preventing EMI/RFI incursion into circuits

roadcykler
194 posts
 

@curiousjim

 

They don't objectively do anything but drain your wallet. 

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