Price range: $12.95 through $29.95 Inc GST
A 3.5 mm to rca cable takes the headphone socket on a phone, laptop or television and splits it into the red and white plugs an amplifier, receiver or powered speaker expects. One stereo jack at one end, two phono plugs at the other, and nothing in between that needs power or setting up.
The 3.5mm end is the ordinary headphone plug. The red plug is the right channel and the white is the left — that is the convention on every piece of hi-fi equipment made in the last forty years, and a 3.5 mm to rca cable follows it.
If the sockets on the back of the amplifier are red and white, a 3.5 mm to rca cable is the lead. If there is a yellow one as well, that is composite video and belongs to a different cable entirely.
A 3.5 mm to rca cable is passive and symmetrical — it works in either direction. Phone out to amplifier in, or an rca to 3.5 mm run back into a laptop’s line-in, both work on the same lead.
What it will not do is make a signal bigger. Plugging a turntable straight into one of these without a phono stage will produce almost nothing, because a turntable’s output is far too small. That is not a fault in the cable.
Half the people who need one search for a 3.5 mm to rca cable and half search for an rca to 3.5 mm lead, depending on which end of the job they are thinking about. It is the same object either way — a passive stereo lead with a jack on one end and a pair of phono plugs on the other — and nothing about the direction changes what you should buy.
Worth saying because the two phrasings turn up different products in a search, and people occasionally buy twice.
The 3.5mm plug on this rca to 3.5 mm cable has three sections — tip, ring and sleeve — so it carries left and right separately. A two-section plug carries one channel to both sides, and a four-section plug is a headset lead with a microphone on it. If an old lead gave you sound in one speaker only, the plug was the reason.
A moulded 3.5mm plug with a knurled metal barrel, gold-plated contacts, and two moulded RCA plugs with the usual red and white collars. Gold plating resists corrosion on a connector that gets left plugged in behind furniture for years. It does not improve the sound — nothing passive does — it just stays reliable longer than bare brass.
The jacket on this rca to 3.5 mm lead is flexible enough to route behind a cabinet without fighting it, which matters more than it sounds when the amplifier is wedged into a shelf.
Stocked in 1m, 2m, 3m and 5m. Buy the length you need rather than the longest — a 3.5 mm to rca cable coiled behind a unit is a tidiness problem rather than an audio one, but it is still a problem. For a phone on a coffee table into an amplifier across the room, 3m is usually the right answer; for a television into a soundbar directly below it, 1m. A 3.5 mm to rca cable that is two metres too long is the one that ends up in a drawer.
This 3.5 mm to rca cable is stocked in Melbourne and ready to go — order before 10am and your rca to 3.5 mm lead ships the same day via Australia Post with insurance, backed by our 90-day warranty and a team who can confirm it suits the gear you own.
Stocked here, not shipped from overseas. Order your 3.5 mm to rca cable today and get the phone playing through the big speakers.
Compatible with anything that has a 3.5mm stereo socket at one end and red/white RCA at the other, including:
Which plug is which: red is the right channel, white is the left. A yellow plug is composite video and is not part of this cable.
Works in either direction — it is a passive lead with no electronics, so 3.5mm out to RCA in and RCA out to 3.5mm in both work.
What it will not do: amplify. A turntable without a phono stage will sound almost silent through it, and that is the turntable, not the cable.
Device and brand names above are used only to describe what the cable connects.
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