Bandwidth Requirements
Are cables with RCA audio, RCA component, RCA composite, or RCA coaxial interconnects interchangeable? The answer is it depends on the cable’s bandwidth limitation. Different signals require different bandwidth, and cables with specific interconnects are designed for that bandwidth. For example, a cable with a RCA audio interconnect is designed for 20 – 20,000 Hz audio transmission while a cable with a RCA component interconnect is designed to carry high frequency video at 30 MHz (1Mhz = 10^6 Hz). The lower the frequency, the easier it is for a conductor to transmit a signal without a loss. There is also a good chance the RCA audio interconnect does not have an impedance of 75 Ohms as the RCA component cable requires. Below is a table that shows different bandwidth requirements for different signals.
| Cable | Minimum bandwidth |
| Telephone | 0.003 MHz |
| Analog Audio | 0.02 MHz |
| Speaker cables | 0.02 MHz |
| S/PDIF | 3.0 MHz |
| Standard Definition Video | 4.2 MHz |
| Optical (Toslink - plastic fiber) | 5.0 MHz |
| Optical (Toslink - quartz fiber) | 10.0 MHz |
| High Definition Video | 30 MHz |
| XGA video | 30 MHz |
| UXGA video | 70 MHz |
| Cat 5 Ethernet | 100 MHz |
| Cat 5e Ethernet | 100 MHz |
| Cat 6 Ethernet | 250 MHz |
| RF Coaxial | 3000 MHz+ |
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