I get audio signal when center pin touches ground sleeve on RCA socket

ideal.hat · 1085

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Offline ideal.hat

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I am in the process of bringing my Crack 1.1 with Speedball back to live.
It is working, but there is a strange issue with the ground on the RCA socket.

When I touch the sleeve on the socket with the center pin on the RCA cable, I hear sound..
Its a bit lower and with some distortion. but when the plug is all the way in, then I believe it sounds normal, (Maybe a bit harsher than I remember)

When I check resistance on the socket I get the following values:

Right Channel: Sleeve = 0ohm, Pin = 88,5K ohm
Left Channel: Sleeve = 0ohm, Pin = 92,3K ohm

Thanks in advance.


Gudmundur Asgeirsson
Bottlehead experience 4 out of 10.
I work as an IT administrator


Offline ideal.hat

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OK, maybe I was too quick.

This seems to only happen when I use my Chord Mojo DAC. (mini jack to RCA cable)
When I connect my stationary M6DAC (normal RCA cable) I don't have this issue.

So this is maybe related to the mini jack to RCA cable or the Chord DAC.

It would be nice to know if this is expected behavior or if someone has noticed this before.


Gudmundur Asgeirsson
Bottlehead experience 4 out of 10.
I work as an IT administrator


Offline Paul Birkeland

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This is not exactly a set of circumstances that would lead us to draw any conclusions one way or the other.  Does your Crack work?  If it does not, this piece of information isn't likely to be helpful in determining what's going on.


Paul "PB" Birkeland

Bottlehead Grunt & The Repro Man


Offline Paul Birkeland

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If the two different DACs are earthed differently, that could partially explain this.  You could get a closed signal current loop that uses the Crack's earthing as the return to the DAC ground. 

Again, this isn't indicative of anything being right or wrong necessarily. 

Paul "PB" Birkeland

Bottlehead Grunt & The Repro Man