Can RCA's touch from different inputs?

On my tube amp, the Aux and Tuner inputs are extremely close and no matter what interconnects I use (I have tried a few) they always seem to touch each other. I would imagine this can cause issues.....or does it really? If it does can I just wrap electrical tape around the RCA's to keep the metal from touching?

I could use a Y splitter, but won't that allow for cross talk etc?

 

Odd one. With many ICs, the shield is connected at one or both ends. This may or may not be isolated from the RCA housing. It could be that by touching you are making connections between the shield/ground end of the ICs.

I use an IC that is low mass, so the housing is non-conductive and the shield/neg bit is well isolated within the RCA connector. The tape solutions seems solid to me.

 

Assuming you just mean the plastic connector pieces, or the insulation on the cable, it's fine.

 

It's probably even OK if the outer terminals on the RCA plugs touch but I wouldn't recommend it. Most amps have a common ground on their inputs. If you get hum, insulate the collars.

Is there enough space for your RCA plugs, adamdube? I don't like it when there isn't enough room. The plugs can get jammed in too tightly together and distort the positions of the jacks. That can cause a jack to fail.

 

It's tight, but not too bad. The ends of the RCAs are metal....Tara Labs cables. I think I will see how it goes with the tape I guess.

Thanks fellas

 

Solution found....cut an old LP cover up and placed the thin cardboard between them...no cross talk....will monitor things to make sure they aren't getting any flack from the amp. Seems to be just fine.

 

Could go with some heat shrink at some point and not worry about the paper falling out.

 

good call.....I have some somewhere, and if not Lowe's is super cheap.....thanks for the tip, much appreciated.