Why so few BNC's used on digital gear?

[klettermann]

It's an ongoing amazement to me how many manufacturers use RCA's for their SPDIF interfaces. The inadequacies of RCA's has been repeatedly demonstrated even if 75 ohm cable is used. Is this really to just save a couple bucks? Lower end McIntosh stuff has RCA's as does most Japanese gear regardless of price. It's not like BNC's are really so exotic, and 75 ohm cables are readily available. In fact, the general lack of inputs is an annoyance. AES/SBU seems to have become and exotic feature. And not everybody wants to use USB or Toslink. Rant over. Thanks for reading.

 

[voodooless]

Well, it works… so there is that

 

[egellings]

Compared to others, BNC connectors are more expensive, and the others work okay. I think that the BNC connector was designed to facilitate frequent connect / disconnect cycles, so it sees widespread use in test gear, and not so much in a living room environment, where a system would be set up once and then seldom altered.

 

[DVDdoug]

For whatever reason, BNC just isn't "standard" for audio. Tradition? That alone (rareness and smaller quantities) makes cables more expensive.

 

[fpitas]

For whatever reason, BNC just isn't "standard" for audio. Tradition? That alone (rareness and smaller quantities) makes cables more expensive.

BNC cables are cheap if you buy ones intended for RF.

But RCA connectors are dirt cheap. They were originally designed for inexpensive add-ons to home stereos. Lucky us, they stuck.

 

[ahofer]

Which one sounds better?

 

[egellings]

For whatever reason, BNC just isn't "standard" for audio. Tradition? That alone (rareness and smaller quantities) makes cables more expensive.

RCA probably caught on early because it is cheap and completely adequate for living room analog audio use. A more expensive connector design such as BNC would offer no additional benefits in that setting. I have to admit, though, that my home brewed setup does use BNCs on the preamp & power amp monoblocks, simply because I like the feel of the connectors. I made adaptor cables with BNC on one end and RCA on the other end to facilitate connecting RCA-terminated equipment to my setup. It's just personal taste; the BNC's do not 'sound better' or anything like that. I just like them.

 

[SIY]

The inadequacies of RCA's has been repeatedly demonstrated even if 75 ohm cable is used.

For audio transmission? Really?

 

[Haflermichi]

It's not just "a couple of dollars". It's a couple of dollars...per every unit manufactured.
That's millions. To what benefit?

No consumer grade, mass market manufacturer is going to go that route when the know the vast majority of buyers could care less and
the durability of a "better" connector is meaningless to them.

Now in the RF, ham radio world BNC has been an established standard for decades. But that is a very small market compared to consumer audio.
But even there the annoying SMA male and female have made inroads.

 

[fpitas]

It's not just "a couple of dollars". It's a couple of dollars...per every unit manufactured.
That's millions. To what benefit?

No consumer grade, mass market manufacturer is going to go that route when the know the vast majority of buyers could care less and
the durability of a "better" connector is meaningless to them.

Now in the RF, ham radio world BNC has been an established standard for decades. But that is a very small market compared to consumer audio.
But even there the annoying SMA male and female have made inroads.

Sometimes SMA is all you can really fit. It's good to a lot higher frequency in general, too.

 

[Haflermichi]

Sometimes SMA is all you can really fit. It's good to a lot higher frequency in general, too.

You're right of course. But as a new ham, KN6UTT, I still wish a "mini-BNC" would have been developed instead.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

I needed an RCA to BNC adaptor for the Canare transformer I used to convert the Spdif output of my Smyth A16 Realiser into AES/EBU for my Octo Dac 8. Was not too happy. Everything works fine but it would have been nice to just have a Spdif to Aes/Ebu cable. Maybe and RCA to XLR would have done the job?

 

[Speedskater]

On the other hand:
BNC made a stupid mistake by making the 50 Ohm and 75 Ohm connectors interchangeable.

 

[fpitas]

On the other hand:
BNC made a stupid mistake by making the 50 Ohm and 75 Ohm connectors interchangeable.

At the lowish frequencies where you use BNC, it may not make a big difference.

 

[Haflermichi]

I have some older HTs with BNC. Easy swappy antenna changee.
Then, getting some newer HTs with SMA...what? We're back to screwing things together in the name of compactness?
Even with adaptors they can unthread themselves. Sigh.

 

[egellings]

On the other hand:
BNC made a stupid mistake by making the 50 Ohm and 75 Ohm connectors interchangeable.

Doesn't the center pin on the 50 ohm version have a diameter that is different from that of the 75 ohm one such that plugging the thicker pinned one into the thinner pinned receptacle can permanently deform the receptacle?

 

[Chrispy]

I've never had any audio gear with bnc but I did have a camera that used one....and that's been it. I have no issues with rca, it works fine. I'd love to see speakons used more in audio gear, tho.

 

[tomtoo]

What should be the bennefit?

 

[DonR]

For audio transmission? Really?

To be fair he did say for SPDIF use. RCA has been used for analog video for many decades and is perfectly fine. Having said that 192/24 requires bandwidth about 3x over video.

 

[dtaylo1066]

It never caught on, so has been pretty much left in the dust heap.