Talk:Tutorial - Connecting Up

This section used to live on the tutorial page - moved here for retention

Identifying various cables and plugs

Peter 20Jun10: should this section on cables/plugs be a separate break-out tutorial, with just a link here? If so I would add the RCA plugs and the USB plug images. I note that we have no S/PDIF plug image.

Gale 20Jun10: I don't think we need a separate tutorial. However we have an image of a USB cable in the section for identifying computer sound ports. I wonder if we should do without this "identifying cables and plugs" section as it has never flowed well for me. We could put the images of 1/8 inch plugs into the ports section and mention TRS there. Put the images of 1/4 inch plugs into the sections where appropriate so people can see them directly in that section.

The terms "jack", "socket" and "port" are often used interchangeably. These all refer to something that a plug plugs into. Plugs plug into jacks, plugs plug into sockets, and plugs plug into ports.

In this tutorial we will refer to sockets on a computer as ports, and sockets on audio equipment as jacks. This is consistent with common usage. A guitarist will plug into the jack on their amplifier, a computer user will plug their USB device into the USB port on their computer.

On virtually all computers the audio ports will be of a type referred to as 1/8", 3.5mm or mini-plug. Here's what these plugs look like.

	A mono mini-plug	A stereo mini-plug

Audio equipment may also use mini-jacks. Quite often the headphone output on portable equipment such as an iPod or Walkman will be a stereo mini-jack.

Audio equipment may also use the larger 1/4" jacks and plugs.

	A mono 1/4" plug	A stereo 1/4" plug

Stereo 1/4" jacks are often found on the front panels of non-portable (home) audio equipment such as home theatre receivers and cassette decks. They may also be found on DJ mixers and professional keyboards.

Electric guitars and amplifiers are equipped with 1/4" mono jacks.

Tip, Ring and Sleeve

The parts of a stereo or mono plug, either 1/8" or 1/4", are identified by the terms "tip", "ring" and "sleeve" as shown in the illustration above. A mono plug has no ring. Thus you may encounter the terms "TRS plug" or "TRS jack". In stereo operation the tip connects to the left channel signal, the ring to the right channel signal, and the sleeve to ground.