Jack

In electronics, the term jack commonly refers to a surface-mounted female connector or socket. The related term "jack plug" refers to a male connector, and is generally shortened to simply "plug".

Some connector styles may contain male (pin), female (socket) or both connection types. Therefore, the use of gender to describe a connector "jack" or "plug" may be misleading. A jack is better described as a receptacle that is designed to be mounted (fixed) on the surface of a bulkhead or enclosure. Its counterpart, the "plug", is designed to attach to a wire, cable or removable electrical assembly.

The term jack occurs in several related terms:

• The "RJ" prefix which stands for "registered jack" in RJ11, RJ45 and similar connectors, and includes the modular jacks used in modern telephone systems and computer network interfaces (i.e., "Ethernet jack").

• The telephone jack of old-style manual telephone switchboards, which is the socket fitting the original 1/4" telephone plug.

• The 1/4" phone jack common to many electronic applications, either in a 2-conductor tip-sleeve (TS) or 3-conductor tip-ring-sleeve (TRS) configuration.

• The RCA jack, also known as a "phono jack", common to consumer electronics.

• The EIAJ jack designed for consumer appliances requiring less than an 18.0 volt power supply.

When preceded by a diameter, the term refers to the jack that matches the corresponding diameter of plug. For example:

• 6.35mm or 1/4" jack
• 3.5mm miniature jack
• 2.5mm subminiature jack

A headphone (or earphone) jack is commonly one of the three standard sizes of 3-conductor TRS jacks, but the term could refer to any socket used for this purpose.

References

Foreman, Chris, "Sound System Design", Handbook for Sound Engineers, Third Edition, Glen M. Ballou, Ed., Elsevier Inc., 2002, pp. 1171-2.

Horowitz, Paul and Winfield Hill, The Art of Electronics, Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 56.

See also

• TRS connector
• Home cinema
• Line level
• Sound card
• Keystone module