Where to buy Cliff jacks?

[Ronsonic]

Wow.

SOmetimes I flip a jack over and say "Hmmm, this one's a Cliff." Sometimes I flip one over and say, "Hmmm, this one's a Rean."

Most times I don;t flip them over at all. I have to say I never cared who made them. All I care about is whether the legs are centered or offset front or back, and I have some that have extended legs for I forget what now.

And if the offset isn;t right, it is usually a matter of either adding or eliminating the fiber spacer/washer.

Ya know what I care about? None of them have the same threads on the chrome nosed style jacks. So when a customer loses the damn thing I can't have a replacement handy and have to actually replace the entire damn jack.

There's another interesting variant on the Cliff jack with a light gray body that has the legs reversed. I forget what those are for but if you put them where the regular one goes you're hosed.

[Buddman]

Cliff Jack info from CLIFF UK

Cliff connectors are nothing special, and you can just replace them with the comparable Re'an/Neutrik jack. If you need mono and all you have is stereo, just clip the two middle pins and leave the contacts intact. Why? The extra contact grips the plug tighter. This is an old trick I learned a long time ago for passive guitars. If you use a stereo jack, the plug won't pull out so easily, and I always connect the ring and sleeve terminals for a redundant ground connection.

FYI, info from Cliff UK.... Still made in the UK for just about the same price or less than as the China made copies.
Material is Virgin (not re-grind or recycled material) Nylon 66 (just upgraded last year from Nylon 6 to withstand higher solder temps), Contacts are Ni-Ag Nickel Silver, Same as they have been using for last 30 years. All Cliff UK British made jacks have #CLIFF UK #" on the bottom of the jack. The # is a number between 1 and 8, this is the mold cavity on the tooling, they do this so if there is ever is a bad molding, they can track it to the exact cavity that may of caused the problem rather then scarp the complete tool. If the jack has only "CLIFF #" without the UK, this is counterfeit jack from China and you never know what your getting as well as putting your product at risk.
You can buy from MCM, Newerk or CLIFF Electronic Components and connectors, jack sockets, XLR's, terminal binding posts, switches, control knobs, RCA jacks, USB, Firewire, DIN and optical (MOQ=100 per box).

Hope this helps.
Buddman

[guitarmike2107]

I changed the jacks in one of my amps to Cliff Uk jacks and it really brought the amp alive, more high end sparkle and definition with added punch and a much wider sound stage, so wide you could ballroom dance all over it

Seriously I have Chinese and UK made jacks and the both work well.

[Big Mike]

You can turn a cliff style switching jack into a non-switching jack by ignoring the switch contact or by removing the switch contact.
In the same way you can also turn a stereo jack into a mono Jack by removing the middle tabs or just ignoring them, no harm done.

Its easy to do and if you buy the switching stereo type then you can always have the option of using the switch if you needed too or using the stereo function/additional switch.

Also what is a genuine cliff jack, and is that Cliff UK or Cliff USA, who both source their parts from factories in the east. i.e. they are not made in the USA.

cheers

Mike

Not USA, never were.

But the REAL Cliff UK Jacks, say Cliff UK. Not just Cliff. There IS a difference. Insertion/extraction force and life testing have confirmed the UK ones last longer. This was the case when I worked for Cliff USA. The Chinese ones arre tin plated phospher contacts.

For DIY'ers, not a big deal. For professional amp builders, boutique or full production, it IS a difference, it's a sturdier and well built jack, Even over the Neutrik/Rean.

FYI the 'white' jacks at AES are NOT real Cliff.

[soundguruman]

I'm interested in getting some genuine Cliff jacks. I can find a couple of places that have the switching mono jacks (which I need), but I also need non-switching mono jacks for speaker output. I can't seem to find the non-switching versions anywhere.

Where can I buy these?
Thanks

As many as you like, $3 each (+ tax).
The switch contacts are unavoidable. If you don't want switching, don't hook up the switch.
No wonder you could not find them, without the switch, there is no such thing.
OK, I take that back: http://www.amplifiedparts.com/produc...&filters=Cliff
However, you need to understand that the switch is a fundamental part of the circuit, and without it, the circuit won't function correctly.

If you put a speaker jack on a tube amp, and fail to hook up a speaker, it could melt the windings in the output transformer.
And so, we make a switch, that shorts the transformer secondary to ground, when the speaker is unplugged.
This can usually save the transformer from damage, when you forget to plug your speaker in.

Transistor amps are opposite. Transistor amp does not care if there is no speaker.
And if the transistor amp is shorted to ground on the output, it blows chunks.

[Gtr_tech]

Cliff connectors are nothing special, and you can just replace them with the comparable Re'an/Neutrik jack. If you need mono and all you have is stereo, just clip the two middle pins and leave the contacts intact. Why? The extra contact grips the plug tighter. This is an old trick I learned a long time ago for passive guitars. If you use a stereo jack, the plug won't pull out so easily, and I always connect the ring and sleeve terminals for a redundant ground connection.

This is a great way to go with the T/R/S jack. The sleeve often is not the most reliable gnd connection, so the unused sleeve connected to gnd makes for a much better gnd.