Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Are RCA y-Adapters dangerous?

Instead of selling my SACD and my DVD-A players and buying a combined SACD/DVD-A player, is it dangerous to hook both players to my AVR's multi-channel jacks using y adapters?

Has anyone done this?

What happens if both players are accidentally playing?

How does the signal out from either player affect the other player because the signal is going into the other's output jacks?

What else could happen?

(I could use switch boxes but the cable cost would not be worth it. Both players are very good qualty)

Thank you,

Intune

Hi Intune,

Not a good idea, because if one player is off and you are using the other one, you'd be feeding audio signals of several volts back into the output circuitry of the other player.

Given the delicacy of ICs in the other player's circuitry, I'm sure damage would occur, and it might be major (i.e. expensive).

Likewise if you inadvertently left both players on, and you were using one or the other, you'd be feeding an output signal into the input of the other player.

Regards,

You might try buying or building an A/B switch that would switch either (A) all 5 outputs from the DVD-A player or (B)all 5 outputs from your SACD player to 5 "common" output jacks which then connect to your receiver's input jacks.