Digital Shorting Plugs

Consult your owner’s manual to determine if the manufacture recommends shorting plugs. Some equipment requires XLR shorting plugs when using rca outputs, other do not.

Some people use XLR and RCA caps without shorting pins (Cardas Caps) which are purported to stop stray RFI/EMI from entering the equipment.

These plugs make no difference whatsoever. There is no technical reason why they should. Inputs do not radiate, so no reason to put caps on them. If they pick-up stray noise, then it is a bad design.

The only REAL plug that is effective would be for a coax or AES/EBU output. This would be a 75 ohm or 110 ohm terminator plug. This will terminate the output and prevent spurious emissions. Even the value of this is questionable. Waste of money IMO.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Agreed Steve, I fail to understand what they would achieve.

I have found Cardas type RCA covers (I got mine for someplace else wayyyyy cheaper)
Work well. I bought 100 of them and stuck them on every unused unput/output I had (aside for receiver, which would need another 100 or so!)
Slightly lower noise floor. Even plasma TV pic slightly less noise
Ditto XLR covers.
They help on digital outputs too (If you cannot turn the output off)
I tend to avoid the shorting type just because..

So i would say they help slightly. But are in no way mandatory for good sound.

This is good info here, thankyou to all, I enjoy reading something that I do not know of.