For some context, I needed to plugin my headphone amp to my main rack, so had to get some new cables made. Wierd numbering aside, here’s what I learned:
the record side pins are one and four rather than the normal playback which are pins three and five.
So - for a regular Din cable that is connecting source and preamp, are the one and four pins hooked on to any cabling at all? Or do they just ‘float’.
I guess the question is more for say the SN3 or the XS3, where there is a stream in/out and av in/out - I’m guessing it’s just the cable that makes the difference whether it operates in In vs. Out mode. That’s pretty cool actually!
In terms of what’s going on inside Naim gear, the unused pins on the DIN sockets that don’t have tape outputs, they are effectively floating in that they don’t have anything connected to them.
Interconnects may well be fully wired depending on their use, but they won’t go anywhere or have any effect on anything when connected to one of these inputs.
Some would argue that you should make sure that the unused conductors should be floating at both ends. So no signal on them at all.