AudioBanter.com - View Single Post - Question about how RCA wires & headphone mini-jacks "work".

On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 18:36:48 GMT, (infamis)
wrote:

But if you're throwing away one of the wires from the audio signal & replacing
it by a wire connected to the ground (the metal rod in the earth), how can
that metal rod be generating the rest of the signal. In DC, you have (+) and
(-). It seems to me that it's like throwing away the (-) away and replacing it
by, I don't know (X). That makes me wonder where the other half of the signal
is coming from.

"Ground" is a reference point. It may or may not be linked to Earth.
What matters is that a wire has a voltage difference to it. If it
does, current will flow.

In an unbalanced audio connection, there generally ARE two wires. The
grounded one commonly acts as a screen as well as a voltage reference.