When in a pickle, you might find a perfectly suitable audio adapter in your pantry.
A YouTuber recently turned a baby carrot into an RCA adapter, showing it could transmit audio with minimal distortion and a slight treble boost. But, while the vegetable worked surprisingly well, it degraded quickly and wasn’t practical for long-term use.
Bummer. Organic audio equipment might have otherwise become a thing.
The Hack: Carrot as an RCA Adapter
Julian Krause isn’t your typical YouTuber. While most tech creators are unboxing the latest gadgets, this European content maker decided to test something a bit more… organic.
His inspiration? A five-year-old Reddit post in which a user shared their desperate audio solution, a.k.a. using a carrot as an adapter when they couldn’t find the right connector.
Even more surprisingly, this veggie setup apparently worked for a whole week (though they had to swap in fresh carrots now and then).
Intrigued by the idea, Krause couldn’t resist trying it himself. And thus began his quest for what he playfully dubbed “audiophile-grade carrots.”
Krause’s experiment wasn’t just for laughs, though. He wanted to see exactly how well a carrot could handle the job, setting up a proper test with direct grounding and signal transfer through the vegetable.
And wouldn’t you know it? Those baby carrots proved they could do more than just make a healthy snack. They actually worked as temporary adapters in a pinch.
How Did the Carrot Affect the Sound?
When Julian Krause dug into the test results, even he was surprised by how well this veggie performed.
First off, the carrot created a bit of resistance, dropping the audio signal by about 4 dB. When he spread the connectors further apart (making the signal travel through more carrot), it dropped another 2 dB.
But, even with this drop, the signal-to-noise ratio still hit 110 dB(A), which is right up there with CD-quality sound.
What about unwanted noise? Krause’s tests showed that most interference was practically non-existent.
There was a tiny bit of electrical hum (that 50 Hz buzz you sometimes hear from old equipment). But it was so quiet, about minus 100 dB, that you’d need superhuman hearing to notice it.
The biggest surprise came when Krause checked for distortion, though. He was sure there’d be some weird effects from connecting gold-plated RCA connectors to a vegetable, but nope!
The only real change? A boost in the higher frequencies, giving the sound a bit more sparkle in the treble range.
Not bad for a snack-turned-audio-component!
Practicality and Viewer Reactions
As impressive as the carrot’s audio performance was, there was one tiny problem… it was still, well, a carrot. Just like what happened in the original post, the veggie went from audio component to compost material after just a week.
Viewers, however, embraced the experiment’s humorous tone. The comment section of his video turned into a garden of audio puns.
Pretty soon, viewers were suggesting a whole produce section worth of potential audio experiments. Could a potato offer warmer bass? Would a cucumber give a cleaner signal? The possibilities were endless.
But beyond the laughs, this experiment actually reveals something pretty interesting about audio equipment.
When a $1 carrot can transmit audio with minimal distortion, it makes you wonder about those fancy RCA adapters selling for up to $100.
Sure, they’ll last longer than a week and won’t rot in your audio rack. But are they really doing anything more than our veggie friend here?
Krause’s experiment, while hilariously unconventional, reminds us that sometimes the simplest solutions work just fine. It’s a fresh (pun intended) perspective on the often overpriced world of audio accessories, where marketing can overshadow actual performance.