Cinch Cables

A cinch cable and an RCA (phono) cable are the same thing: a plug with a centre pin and a round outer shell that you'll know from hi-fi systems, turntables, DJ mixers and the back panels of amplifiers. Most of the cables here are stereo pairs with two RCA plugs at each end, red for the right channel and white or black for the left. Besides those, you can pick RCA to 3.5 mm jack for a phone or laptop, RCA to 6.3 mm jack for a mixer, and RCA to XLR for active speakers. Cordial, Roland, Klotz, ADJ, UDG and PremiumCord round out the range, in lengths starting at 30 cm.

Which RCA cable for a phone, laptop or DJ controller?

Phones and laptops have a 3.5 mm headphone output, so you need a 3.5 mm stereo jack to 2× RCA cable; it carries music into a hi-fi amplifier, active speakers or an input on a DJ mixer. DJ controllers and mixers with RCA outputs connect to a mixing desk with a 2× RCA to 2× 6.3 mm mono jack cable. If an active speaker only has an XLR input, pick RCA to male XLR – you'll find these among the XLR cables as well.

Over what distance does an RCA connection work well?

RCA carries an unbalanced line-level signal, so it's suited to connections within a single setup – from a player to an amplifier, or from a DJ mixer to the speakers next to the DJ table. A few metres is fine. For long runs across a stage or a hall, a balanced connection over XLR or TRS cables is the safer choice, because it suppresses interference along the way.