What Are the Benefits of BNC Connectors?

We’ve all see the three colored cables used to connect our DVD and Blu-ray players to our televisions. One red, one yellow, and one white. These were the popular connectors for audio visual components for many years, called RCA connectors. 

These cables are great for home audio / visual connections, and are fairly inexpensive, only recently beginning to fall to the wayside as home electronics companies began to favor HDMI cables.

In a professional setting however, the king of the audio / visual connector remains the BNC connector, or “Bayonet Neil-Concelman.” This connector crimps firmly onto the end of coaxial cable, much like what you have coming into your home for your cable TV. 

The BNC connector offers several benefits over its residential counter parts, the RCA:

Simplicity

First, it’s just one connector as opposed to three. If something doesn’t work, your troubleshooting is not as complicated, as there are few points of failure. Your problem is either in the middle of the cable somewhere or one of its two connectors. With RCA, it could be in the middle, or one of its SIX connectors! 

Firm Connection

Have you ever had your RCA cables yanked out of their jacks at some point by something falling behind the entertainment center, or some wandering pet? It doesn’t take a strong tug to pull them at least partially out. 

RCA cables also have what could be considered a bit of a flaw in their design, where the “hot” part of the connection makes contact before the “ground.”  If the connector is not plugged in all the way, your signal will be poor. If it’s an audio connection, you’ll get buzzing. If its video, your picture quality will degrade. This is sometimes a difficult thing to troubleshoot, as it doesn’t have to be pulled out very far and you may not realize it’s not plugged in all the way.

The BNC connector twists firmly and locks onto the other connector, and it’s not easily jarred loose by accident. 

Quality of Signal

The coaxial cable with the BNC connector offers far superior picture and sound than its RCA counterparts. 

Here are some instructions, complete with a visual aid on how to terminate your coaxial cable with a BNC connector.

And as always, it’s of vital importance that you have all the right connectors and the right ratchet crimp tools. The right tool, for the right job!

CZLabs carries supplies for all your BNC cabling needs and our wholesale bulk pricing can’t be beat.

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