20th February 2013
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#1 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Jan 2007 Location: Barcelona
Posts: 713
Thread Starter  | Worst connector ever?
Just out of curiosity. It does not need to be audio exclusively.
My candidate is the thankfully obsolete Scart connector  . I think you US guys did not have the pleasure to use it.
Beat it!
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20th February 2013
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#2 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Sep 2004 Location: Bavaria, Germany
Posts: 2,151
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Mini Jack. Whoever forced that POS on the public should be (insert your fav mode of distress here). Its even worse when somebody with a gadget w mini jack out shows up and wants you to connect it to stuff. And then, if there's trouble, blames it on you. And then is too deluded by marketing to accept the mini jack's where the trouble starts.
__________________
Property is not ability. Buying a drumset won't make you a drummer and buying gear won't make you an engineer.
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20th February 2013
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#3 | | Gear addict
Joined: Apr 2008 Location: Sweden
Posts: 326
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So damn ugly.
Thank god I went from windows pc to mac book pro.
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20th February 2013
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#4 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Sep 2005 Location: London, UK
Posts: 629
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By far, the worst connector is the firewire minijack. It does not click into position and can slip out at any moment!
Just what you want when you are recording a take on your laptop through your RME fireface - Who designed this thing?
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20th February 2013
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#5 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Sep 2006 Location: Portland OR USA
Posts: 1,517
| Quote:
Originally Posted by Santiago  By far, the worst connector is the firewire minijack. It does not click into position and can slip out at any moment!
Just what you want when you are recording a take on your laptop through your RME fireface - Who designed this thing? | Apple designed it. They love those tiny things that pull out with almost no force. But evilrocker can be satisfied that they don't have those "ugly" retaining screws. 
OTOH, my most hated connector is the "inverted phone" power connector. It continues to be used even by high-end audio and video equipment.  | |
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20th February 2013
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#6 | | Gear nut
Joined: Nov 2010
Posts: 112
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The RJ45. And the RJ11. The little plastic lug that's meant to keep it in place snaps off really easily, and then the connector doesn't stay in place. OTOH, with a crimper to hand, they are reasonably easy to replace if you don't mind your cable getting an inch shorter each time.
The FW800 takes some beating as a 'high-end' connector that falls out of sockets too easily.
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20th February 2013
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#7 | | Gear Head
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 67
| Quote:
Originally Posted by nucelar My candidate is the thankfully obsolete Scart connector . Beat it! | Can't. SCART is the worst ever. No contest. It won't be topped. Ever. It's French, right? | |
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20th February 2013
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#8 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 2,517
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Nothing beats the molex connector, you dont know what a bad connector is until you find yourself wiggling one of these  | |
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20th February 2013
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#9 | | Lives for gear
Joined: May 2005 Location: Oklahoma City
Posts: 1,984
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RCA connectors are pretty nasty.
Bri
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20th February 2013
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#10 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Aug 2005 Location: London, UK
Posts: 1,100
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D-sub. Rated for something like 11 insertion cycles before it can't be guaranteed to work (honestly, that's the spec I've seen). Two different incompatible and near-indistinguishable standards for the threads on the thumbscrews. Often the thumbscrews and the posts on the socket don't line up, so at best you can only get one of the thumbscrews to screw in, leaving the other end of the connector to randomly come disconnected. Ends of the thumbscrews shear off and remain stuck in the post if the cable is yanked. Posts on the sockets have a habit of coming unscrewed, leaving you with only one (or zero if you've already lost one) post. And that can also leave a nut rattling around in the equipment.
Soldering plugs or sockets is a drag because the pins are fixed into the body.
Horrible. Bane of my bloody life.
FW800 runs a close second. Shame, because FW400 was absolutely fine... how did they get it so wrong the second time?
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20th February 2013
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#11 | | Gear addict
Joined: Dec 2012 Location: Australia
Posts: 457
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To be worst connector ever then it can't be something that has hung around for decades. If it has hung around for decades it must either be at least marginally OK (or government mandated!)
I think we are looking for something that came and went quickly. Something that caused faults each month until we dumped it.
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20th February 2013
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#12 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Dec 2006 Location: den haag, NL
Posts: 214
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firewire mini, it will only stay in place with a few drops of hot glue.
hdmi. thin, flimsy connector with a heavy cable stressing the hdmi jack.
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20th February 2013
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#13 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Mar 2010 Location: Brooklyn, NY
Posts: 539
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Cannon UA-3-11. If you have an EV 666 you know what I mean!
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20th February 2013
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#14 | | Gear addict
Joined: Jan 2009 Location: Chicagoland
Posts: 424
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20th February 2013
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#15 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Jan 2007 Location: Germany
Posts: 1,347
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20th February 2013
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#16 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Mar 2010 Location: Area 51, NV, USA
Posts: 1,601
| Absolutely no contest!
The worst connector of all time was/is the Amphenol coaxial screw down mic connector (also made by Switchcraft) and commonly used for High-Z mics, especially cheap crystal mics.
Whoever came up with the idea of using a center contact made out of a blob of oxidised soft solder should be forever banned to listening to only Yanni recordings for eternity.
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20th February 2013
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#17 | | Gear addict
Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 474
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4 pin firewire. Only thing holding it in is hope
Sent from my XOOM 2 using Tapatalk
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20th February 2013
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#18 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Apr 2007 Location: Preparing to escape New York...
Posts: 601
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It's like taking a trip down memory lane, to nightmares I'd forgotten about!
Except I missed out on the Scart monstrosity, that looks like a total disaster...
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21st February 2013
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#19 | | Gear nut
Joined: Aug 2009
Posts: 141
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I think the 1/8" made into TRS--or even worse now, TRRS--where a connector fit for an earphone for a transistor radio is transformed into something well out of its depth, could well be the Compact Cassette of connectors. What I mean is, where something for a very low-end application in its original design objective (for the cassette, it began as a dictation medium--voice grade only) is transformed over time into a virtually universal standard punching well above its weight (as it became widely appropriated for hi-fi stereo and even low-end multitrack applications).
That's for audio. I also have a spot in the hall of shame for those awful barrel connectors used to link wall warts to whatever equipment. WHEN (not if) things go intermittent/wrong with them it's virtually always a crapshoot as to if you can find a replacement of the exact inner and outer dimensions that will fit....and you only get it right by looking by accident. Another horrible thing, the combination of laws that led to adopting outboard power sources made by other companies rather than how it universally once was done, where everything had its own internal mains power supply (unless it was a battery-powered item, wherein the wall warts first were employed, as a way to run them off the mains).
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21st February 2013
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#20 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Jun 2002 Location: Denmark
Posts: 724
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I'll support the scart as the worst connector ever - mainly because it's crap in EVERY version.
Most of the other connectors mentioned here are available in (more or less) decent high-grade versions if you pay for it...
Jakob E.
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21st February 2013
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#21 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Aug 2005 Location: London, UK
Posts: 1,100
| Quote:
Originally Posted by S21 To be worst connector ever then it can't be something that has hung around for decades. | Ok, maybe D-sub gets the "connector most inappropriate for pro-audio" award.
Made worse by the fact that you run into them on everything these days.
When the electronics industry can create something as astonishingly reliable as Apple's 30-pin dock connector, you'd think someone could invent something better than the D-sub for pro audio use.
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21st February 2013
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#22 | | Gear addict
Joined: Dec 2012 Location: Australia
Posts: 457
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Apple's dock connector is a shocker. That's why they have dumped it.
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21st February 2013
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#23 | | Gear addict
Joined: Nov 2010 Location: London
Posts: 496
| Quote:
Originally Posted by vinvanda 4 pin firewire. Only thing holding it in is hope
Sent from my XOOM 2 using Tapatalk | I was so close to just glueing the cable to my laptop, but this in a last minute flash of clarity I brought an external FireWire expander card.
My other suggestion is the xlr barrel connectors with two screws clamping down the cable and one more holding the mating part. It take about 10X the time to make up a cable.
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22nd February 2013
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#24 | | Gear addict
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 438
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s-video
I have a few large church clients that still have video distribution systems over s-video, we periodically receive service calls from them when their systems go down. Seems the SPL level during service or even the gradual settling of the building is enough to knock the connectors out.
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22nd February 2013
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#25 | | Gear addict
Joined: Dec 2012 Location: Australia
Posts: 457
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Dc power connectors with different centre pin diameters?
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22nd February 2013
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#26 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 2,517
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It looks like only one or two of you have experienced molex hell.... If you had, molex would be the winner of this thread
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22nd February 2013
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#27 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 2,517
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It looks like only one or two of you have experienced molex hell.... If you had, molex would be the winner of this thread
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22nd February 2013
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#28 | | Gear addict
Joined: Nov 2002 Location: NY
Posts: 442
| Quote:
Originally Posted by Lotus 7 Absolutely no contest!
Whoever came up with the idea of using a center contact made out of a blob of oxidised soft solder should be forever banned to listening to only Yanni recordings for eternity. | whoa...
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22nd February 2013
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#29 | | Gear Head
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 50
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I'm on my third power adapter under warranty. Quote:
Originally Posted by evilrocker So damn ugly.
Thank god I went from windows pc to mac book pro. | Having dealt with three different sets of Mac display adapters, of which the latest generation mostly don't work, I'll take the big kludgy DVI plug every time.
Durable, too. The cables wear fast, but at least you don't need to resolder the jack to your motherboard... Quote:
Originally Posted by dualflip It looks like only one or two of you have experienced molex hell.... If you had, molex would be the winner of this thread | At least you can replace them easily.
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22nd February 2013
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#30 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Sep 2006 Location: Portland OR USA
Posts: 1,517
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The white nylon "Molex" connectors with the snap-in stamped contacts are fine for what they were designed for, namely internal disconnects. When people start trying to use them for external connectors, they are way out of their depth.
Apple lives in their own little walled garden with Steve Jobs pulling the strings from on high.
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