RCA Plugs for Dummies

typical speaker wire

The staffers here at the Antisocial Network long ago realized that one of the surest identifiers of a potential nominee is a certain level of bullshit in their writing. Many a repeat DotD has been caught pretending expertise based on his or her ability to reword something written by people who may (or may not) actually know what they're talking about. Today's nominee is such a case, that of Nichole Liandi and her Techwalla.com post, "How to Solder RCA Connectors."

Liandi has, for what it's worth, been here before – ten times, in fact. Wonder of wonders, this time out she (more or less) got it right. Nichole managed to define an RCA connector (at least the male plug) and put together some reasonably competent instructions for how to solder wires to the two contacts in a disassembled plug.
Where Liandi's post went wonky, and what earned her another DotD award, is where she tried to differentiate between the wires and their connection. See, one wire connects to the pin in the center of the plug and the other has to be soldered to the outer sleeve. Here's how Nichole introduced that process:

"Take the positive lead of the wire (colored red) and hold the bare wire against the center pin of the RCA connector..."

Unfortunately, Nichole's source for this information isn't apparent; but it's probably the same one she faked for another post, a book – conveniently unavailable for verification (a favorite trick of eHow.com contributors who were faking their expertise.
Here's the thing, Nichole: two-conductor wires for audio don't necessarily have red and black leads. In fact, they rarely have separate red and black leads, Instead, there may be a silver (positive) wire and a copper (negative) wire; or there may be a white stripe inside the clear insulation to designate the positive; sometimes the insulation on the positive wire is ribbed while that on the negative is smooth.

Our Dumbass of the Day just didn't know that...

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