Topic: RCA Male to XLR female - Pinout Diagram?

[morningdew]

I want to solder up the following.

RCA Male to XLR female.  I have the female XLRs and the wire.

Can someone tell me or link me to the proper pin layout to make it work?  And if you could be descriptive on RCA as I’ve never seen the inside of one.  The XLR no problem.

Finally, I’ve been using Neutrik for XLRs as per a recommendation on this board.  Any recommendations for manufacturer of Male RCA’s?

Thanks.

[morningdew]

Sweet, I'm answering my own posts.  This makes me crazy right? .

I found a reference thread just a few below.  It's not perfectly clear but I believe the answer is:

Pin 1 and 3 of the Female XLR is wired to the screen of the Male RCA.
Pin 2 of the Female XLR is wired to the center post of the Male RCA.

Correct?

That just leaves this:  Who makes and sells quality RCA jacks?

Thanks again.

[fozzy]

I really like the canare F-09 RCAs

[ghellquist]

Stop. Hold it right there.

Where are you doing to connect that XRL female?

The reason I am asking is, if you connect to a balanced output pin three may or may not carry a signal. To cut it very short and not entirely accurate:
- if your output has a transformer the connection you described will work perfectly.
- if your output is "pseudo-balanced" your connection will work.
- if your output is true balanced and transformerless you will burn a lot of energy channeling the - signal directly to ground. This may not have any effect at all, create distortion or even destroy the output stage (only in really bad designs) in a scale of increasing problems.

If your output is transformerless your best bet is getting a transformer, balanced to unbalanced. (Expensive)
Your next best bet is to connect only pin 1 to shield and pin 2 to signal.
In some case you will get a better result connecting only pin 3 to shield and pin to 2 ground. My suggestion then is to use a two-wire + shield cable and connect the cable shield only at the output end to pin 1.
I never connect the case of the XLR connector to anything else, even if that is the preferred method. In my experience that only creates problems.

Gunnar