Legacy microphone connectors

[Dave Plowman (News)]

What's the difference?

[Bob Eager]

Who would you like to have gender with? :-)

Reminds me of explaining the difference ebtween education and training.

You wouldn't mind a school giving (say) your daughter some sex education. But sex training???

[Graham Nye]

A common mnemonic is:

1 eXternal i.e. screen 2 Live hot/+ve audio 3 Return cold/-ve audio

For more than you wanted to know:

[Graham Nye]

Words have gender, people have sex.

[Ashley Booth]

The Nagra III had a male XLR input. I was told it was because there wasn't a female right-angled XLR chassis mounted connector.

[Ashley Booth]

It was confusing as correct way had live pins!

[Ashley Booth]

Also on the female XLR, pin 1 has a longer socket so it's the first to mate and last to break avoiding a burst of hum when plugging and unplugging live circuits.

I rather fancied have a car reg plate XLR311c :)

[Johny B Good]

Well, inaminate objects don't _have_ sex but they can be described as having a gender which is a more polite reference used as a matter of convention, even though the terms male and female aren't normally associated with the word gender when applied to people (masculine and feminine are the normal adjectives in this case).

The mixed use of gender with male and female emphasizes the fact that it's objects rather than people. Also, you'll find that components catalogues will use 'gender' for this purpose without any mention of the word 'sex' (other than perhaps machine translations from Chinese or Korean catalogues).

[Dave Liquorice]

If a balanced circuit buzzes/hums depending on the state of the screen something else is wrong as well.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

So you can no longer refer to the male sex? Or a difference between the sexes? It now only refers to the act?

Collins GEM English Dictionary gender n. state of being male or female, sex; Grammar classification of nouns in certain languages as masculine, feminine, or neuter.

[Bill Wright]

XLRs are universally used for the 24VDC charger connection on disability equipment. From memory 1 is +, 2 is -, 3 inhibits operation if the charger is connected.

Bill

[Bill Wright]

My three year old once proved that a shuko male is a perfect fit for the nostrils of a large sleeping labrador (also male).

Bill

[Bill Wright]

Many young people are confused about these issues.

Bill

[Mark Carver]

On a related subject, I was told this week that South Africa have decided to migrate themselves from 15 Amp round pin mains connectors, to our BS1363 13A scheme. How long will that take I wonder ?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In TV, we use 4 pin versions for low volt DC.

But not really a problem using the 3 pin for something like this.

It was much more of a problem when some of the lighting rigs in TV studios started using 3 pin XLRs for their control circuits.

[charles]

Those should be 5 pin, but the bottom end of the market felt 3 pin were more easily available.

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

LOL!

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Hmm. Bad choice IMO - I've seen a lot of people sing the praises of the BS1363 scheme, but IMO although it was good at the time it was devised, it is now far too big a connector for the vast majority of the time, when there are far more devices that take well under 1A than those needing anywhere near 13. (And I've never seen a BS1362 fuse rated below

2A, and you can't get less than 3A in most places.) (And yes, I know the "it's to protect the cable" line.)

I suppose, _if_ you're going to standardise on one plug for everything, even though this makes most of them far too big, you've got to do so, though I'd have chosen something other than BS1363 - IEC320, or Schuko, or ...

One of the worst things about BS1363 is that, in its default form, if you just leave a lead lying on the floor, it is more likely than not to settle with its pins up. Just waiting for a bare foot to come along. You only have to tread on one ONCE to know how bad it is.

As for how long it will take RSA - well, I suppose one could say it's _just_ about reached universality here, and we're a more prosperous nation than a lot of RSA ... (When did it come out - 195x? [I think the "shrouded pins" bit was 197x.])

[The Natural Philosopher]

20 years or more.

When I was there I worked for a German company. The factory was wired with German sockets throughout.

I had emigrated with loads of UK gear including fortunately several UK

13A extension leads. I kept all my gear on that.

[Mark Carver]

A lot of hotel rooms I've stayed in there, have shuko sockets on the walls above the desks etc, alongside the 15A ones. And wall warts and phone chargers etc that are sold and supplied there are normally 2 pin shuko style.

So as JPG suggested, would make more sense to migrate towards shuko, rather than BS1363