Car audio wire is broken. can I splice it back together?

Question

The rca cable going from my head unit to the amp is broken. The plug part snapped off into the receptical. I have an old rca cable with the plug still intact. Can I just cut the cable and splice the plug from the new cable onto the old cable so that I don't have to take out the head unit and replace the whole rca cable. The rca cable looks shielded so I'm not sure if cutting it will mess up too much of the shielding and cause interference.

Update:

I exposed the conductor in the rca cable and wire nutted it to a piece of number 12 stranded wire and shoved the 12 wire into the input port and its thumping now. I'll fix it with a new rca cable next time I go to Walmart and buy one

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

The way I'd do that repair would be to buy a new RCA plug and solder it onto the old cable. You can cut and splice the piece of scrap cable to replace the broken plug though, but that slightly compromises the braided shield's function of shielding electrical noise from the whole cable. If no noise is perceived after you splice, good for you.

? · Answer

No, buy a new one from amazon or from a car audio shop.

Anonymous · Answer

Fix it properly.  Install a new cable.

Car audio wire is broken. can I splice it back together?

3 Answers