extend rca cable

[wisehunter1]

So I'm extending my rca speaker cables but when i cut open each positive and negative cable, there is a tiny insulated red cable within each pos and neg cable.... what is the purpose of this red cable? and do i need to extend this little cable or will I be fine ignoring it?

[fueler]

haha rca cables aren't "positive and negative," in terms of car audio, they are "left and right" for transmitting stereo signal. Thats why you can hook up RCA cables to opposite colors and they will still play just fine (until you start tuning your stereo's fade/balance for one set of speakers to be louder than another set - then the colors start to matter but not really)

Within each RCA cable is a pair of wires. Look at the plug... the inner part is for the signal and the outer part is for screening (ground). You need to hook both up for the sound to work.

You might get some interference noise now that a section of your cables are no longer shielded, if thats the case then you might have to buy new RCA cables. They were also too short in my qx4 so i bought some RCA couplers and simply extended them with more RCA cable, cost like $5.

[wisehunter1]

thanks for the advice. I ended up connecting all the wires with longer wiring and the sound seems fine.

[SBK03SE]

Noob question, is this for the DVD/VHS player so you can just plug in an MP3 player and get direct line audio? If so, I'd deal with some exposed wire to avoid using an FM transmitter.

[wisehunter1]

this was for a sound system install I did almost a year ago. The rca cables from my speaker amp just barely made it into the head unit by cutting across the passenger footwell. It looked very sloppy but I've been putting off extending them due to school.

[SBK03SE]

Welp, I answered my own question. I used an RCA cable straight from the ipod to the DVD player and voila, line audio. Beats radio transmitter anyday! Now I just need a longer cable.

[Towncivilian]

Check Monoprice for cheap, high quality cables.