internal 1/4 inch jack

harpastatic · internal 1/4 inch jack

builders used to always say it was a bad idea to put a 1/4 inch female right in a shell.now i see more and more mic builders do this.what's up with that?pros ,cons?

Cumberland

One of the reasons they use them is that they are less expensive to purchase than the screw on type connector. The screw on type requires another adaptor to get to a 1/4" plug in for the guitar/mic cords.

Jeff

Ray

Easier ground. Two prongs, one hot and one ground. Easier installation. Smile

The old Gasket Man

Personally, I like 'em. The mic packs easier, it's lighter in your hands, doesn't have 5" of metal protruding off the bottom of the mic (only 3"). The female screw-ons will fail (that's why nobody uses them). Just lots of reasons. They go good in a JT shell but won't work in a Bullet. Just not enough metal back there.

harpastatic

is there a particular female 1/4 you would use in a JT-30?

and i wonder why some builders said not to go that route?

gheumann

I install them for customers all the time.

I don't like them personally. They ARE easier to install because they have a ground lug built in, as Ray pointed out.

But

a) it makes me crazy that if I step on my cord during a solo, the sound just goes dead instead of simply pulling my head and hands down, and

b) as an installer, I have A LOT of mics I've built or modified with new connectors out there in the world. I have had ZERO failures of the screw-on connector (cables will fail, but the male connector just doesn't), but I HAVE had failures of 1/4" sockets. They can be sensitive to the variance in dimension among individual 1/4" plugs too, and

c) They take much more room inside the mic and often aren't feasible, and

d) In any volume control, adapter or extended stick mic (like the way I do the shure 545) it makes the entire thing a LOT longer - this is undesirable from an aesthetic point of view, but also, from the player's perspective. it increases the leverage that the weight of the cable has over your hands and leads to hand fatigue.

So there. 4 reasons 1/4" females suck. But then, that's just me, and I happily install them for customers when they want them.....

harpastatic

thanks man,that's the kind of info i was looking for.i think i'll stick with the screw on connectors for now.

www.myspace.com/shakeylyman

The old Gasket Man

Right on all accounts, Greg. The 1/4" connectors do tend to get noisy after a while. But I still like them in a JT shell, and the hot connector can easily be bent back into place if they start to get loose. Also, they're easily replaced. I actually have seen one female screw-on fail, but only one. Couldn't tell what happened, but it was grounding out somewhere. By the time I got the thing drilled out, it was too far gone to diagnose.

gheumann

They're easy to replace/fix IF you can use the big/fat/short panel mount ones. But to fit inside a 545, or one of my controls or adapters, one must use the "thick panel mount" style and all the spring-stuff is internal. They aren't serviceable and in my case not even that easy to replace. And then there's still that pesky step-on-the-cable problem....

The old Gasket Man

Ok, you win. I still like them in JT's though!

bacon-fat

With the screw on connector you always have a sealed connection, whether the mic is being used or not.

With the jack, even the box type jacks are not airtight when the mic is unplugged.

harpastatic

hey bacon fat,is that your ebay handle too?if so i bid on an auction of yours.(a 2501mp so it is not off topic)

that'd be a great name for an early piazza fan!