F*#king 1/4" phone plugs!

[Milkmansound]

Switchcraft is the way to go for output connections, but not the way to go for input connections. Ever since they changed the coating to comply with ROHS things have gone south. I've compared the new jacks to vintage jacks and you can see right away that there is some sort of new coating that does not play well with amplifiers.

I had a customer complain that an amp "went nuts all of a sudden" while sitting idle during a recording session for John Fogerty. The brand new input jack opened it's shunt to ground. I've been using neutrik on my inputs ever since and luckily no problems since.

However, for speaker outputs in a fender style amp switchcraft jacks are the best because they have the lowest profile, and they are easier to ground or insulate. I've also used them on low wattage amps where space is an issue and where noise is of no concern.

[xtian]

Neutrik, like this?

http://www.parts-express.com/neutrik-nm ... d--090-972

You prefer over Cliff?

[LOUDthud]

Neutrik phone jacks are rated at 3 Amps except for the locking ones that are rated at 10 Amps. The switch contacts are rated at 0.5A @ 50V.

Cliff jacks are rated at 5 Amps maximum.

[steveneddy]

Switchcraft user here also.

I will run a piece of paper through the switch part with a little Deoxit and it will clean it a little - it seems to help with the coating.

On older switched with some slight corrosion I use very fine sandpaper - make one swipe only - then clean with a swipe of paper and Deoxit.

I also counsel my customers to use only name brand cables with good ends - and I give them a new cable made with Neutrik ends and Mogami cable with each amp purchase. If it's a head unit they also get a speaker cable with Switchcraft large plug ends.

I usually get some cable business after that due to the fact that everything fits and sounds correctly - you gotta use the good stuff - and use what works you you individually also.

And like many others - I like Speakon connectors for PA and Bass amp cabs.

[tubeswell]

BTW welcome to the forum SWC

[hbamp]

About a year ago I had problems with Switchcraft to. I did a close check and found out the bad ones were copies. Bought them by TAD. They sell a lot of Chinese stuff for real.

[Structo]

There should have been a standard for the plug and jack manufacturers to agree on.

Not only is the switching part not well designed but the all important tip on the phone plug varies so much that the plug may only make a pin point contact to the jack.

Seems to me the Switchcraft jacks don't use the same material for the switch contact as they used to.
They don't seem as springy and bending the contacts to make better contact
can be aggravating.

[C Moore]

Better late than never.......
I guess it was about 2-3 years ago.?.......I had trouble with a lot of 10 that I bought from CE.
4 or 5 of them did not make good contact with no plug inserted.
Somebody back then recommended the "Industrial/Commercial" variant.
They are a lot more expensive...but if you buy 10 from Mouser the cost is not too bad. They do seem to be a better made jack.
I built an old Ampeg M12 clone. I had a bad buzz problem.....turned out the amp did not like the grounded Switchcraft jack. So I bought a pack of those shoulder washers from Doug Hoffman. I use those now anytime I use that type of jack.
The Cliff Jacks seem better by design, and they are isolated.
I don't know.....I like "old" stuff.....hate to give up on Switchcraft. Was nice to hear the sales rep give some info.
Anyway.....what is this Switchcarft that you guys say Mike Zaite has started to use.? Anybody have a link or picture.?
Thank You

[Leo_Gnardo]

I built an old Ampeg M12 clone. I had a bad buzz problem.....turned out the amp did not like the grounded Switchcraft jack. So I bought a pack of those shoulder washers from Doug Hoffman. I use those now anytime I use that type of jack.

You had a ground loop. Putting on the shoulder washers fixed it. Has nothing to do with the "quality" of Switchcraft jacks.

Last week I replaced plastic PC jacks with Switchcraft metal jacks in a Hot Rod Deluxe. Same thing. The circuit ground is made by a flying lead from the board to a screw on the chassis. I created a second ground route = lots of hum & buzz when volume control is turned up. Remounted the metal jacks with shoulder washers and the amp's as quiet as it should be.

For those experiencing real problems, insufficient spring pressure at the jack, plating flaking off, other stuff, check your part AND your sources. There's LOTS of fakers going around and sometimes they are sold by otherwise reputable dealers.

I've gotten mine for years from Conquest, and more recently from Antique/CE. Never a problem with either. They have the real thing.

[R.G.]

Back when I was a wet-behind-the-ears engineerling, I went to work for a computer company we'll call Three Intitial Corporation (TIC). This was in the 1970s when if it was an electronic part, it came from the USA or from the highest tech of Europe. There wasn't anything else.

TIC had a whole division devoted entirely to testing and qualifying parts and manufacturers as being good enough to use. This was an issue to me as an engineerling because I could not use the newest, sexiest parts on the markets, only dull, dreary, old parts that had been qualified and passed as good enough to trust in manufacturing.

On the other hand, remarkably nearly 100% of the parts we ordered for manufacturing worked first time, every time.

Fast forward to the 1990s. In those 20 years, clever USA MBAs had noticed that some manufacturing could be "off-shored" to especially Japan, but also Taiwan, then Malasia, Singapore, and then China. In fact, by the late 1990s, it was obvious that there were only two kinds of manufacturing companies in the USA: those that were sending manufacturing off-shore, and those that were going broke. The world voted with their pocketbooks for the cheapest possible parts and goods.

Today, many of the brands you know and trust exist only as labels applied to something built by a contract manufacturer. Some manufacturing companies build their "own" factories in non-USA, non-EU countries, dealing with the country's laws that to manufacture there, the company that does the manufacturing must be more than half locally owned, but often the clever MBAs note that it's more effective to just get competitive quotes from contract manufacturers.

This is a GREAT deal for the end consumer, voting as they have for cheaper goods that mostly work, instead of expensive goods that always work.

It appears that this condition is an outgrowth of how human nature works and economic laws that are more fuzzily known, but just as rigid, as the laws of gravity and motion.

But I'm wandering. Sorry.

The reason your jacks are not all $10-20 each is that they're made fast and cheap in a competitive market and not all 100% tested. It's the way the world is, not a characteristic of Switchcraft, Mouser, China, USA, or whatever other labels put on it. What you pay for the vastly cheaper parts you get in general is that instead of 100% working forever, 98+% work fine, and there are a few bummers.

Mother Nature also has laws about human behavior and commerce, just as rigid as electromagnetism.

[rp]

Can someone explain all those (legitimate) jacks that are Cliff-like? First there were the Re'ans then Cliffs and now the Neutriks. All the same? Neutrik owns them all now? Or Cliff and Neutrik are different companies but look jacks identical?

How do you insulate a Switchcrafts, is there a specific washer set they make for it? Mouser #?

Spellchecker wants to make Switchcraft into Witchcraft

[Structo]

Cliff jacks are made in the UK and I believe they have Cliff UK stamped on them.

[C Moore]

Yes... a ground loop, and is why I used the shoulder washers, and why I mentioned the Cliff style as being Isolated. Just a consideration when comparing the two styles.
I probably just got hold of a bad batch of Switchcraft from CE...who got bad sets from Their Supplier.
It happens. I had 50% failure...but the real rate was probably less than 1% for the whole world. I just happened to get a bunch. We see it with everything.....like those bad 22-450 caps IC had a few years back. Seems like they all went into Fender PCB amps.....lots of failures.
I was reading on The Tele Forum about Elytics (which brands are "good").......2 of the techs on that forum advised against buying IC, because they... "Had a history of failure". Other than THAT situation with the bad paste, or counterfeit paste...whatever it was.....I have never known IC to be bad caps.
I do not want to give the impression I was slagging Switchcraft.....they have made Millions of quality products.

[rp]

Cliff jacks are made in the UK and I believe they have Cliff UK stamped on them.

But they look identical to the neutriks, isn't there a patent or something? I bet Neutrik owns them both.

[johnnyreece]

Hmm...the Neutriks I've received were the Switchcraft style...