Spades vs Bananas vs Bare Wire Treated with Caig Deox

For a unique solution to the cable/loudspeaker connection "problem", look into the Tube Connector offered by GR Research. GR's Danny Richie explains it in some of his Tech Talk Tuesday YouTube videos.

My preferences...

I prefer NOT to use bare wire, just because the contact area can be fraught with issues like micro arching, oxidation low area of contact i.e. depending on the wire used

I do prefer Bananas, but these too can have problems

• the area of the connection on most bananas is very small due to additional clips that provide grip
• Locking bananas actually have a very low area of conductivity with multiple points of contact
• Spring clip style of bananas are NOT perfectly round, so their contact are is again quite small
• the metal the bananas are made from is often brass or some copper alloy, which has a lower conductivity than copper 

Spades my be a requirement due to heavy cables, but their area of contact is only marginally better than most bananas, but there are several companies that offer solid copper spades or silver plated spades vs. the brass versions which are not the best choice

My preference of Banana:
KLE Innovations banana plugs - because they are

• very well designed
• silver plated - which I prefer
• the only banana that is perfectly round and fit the binding post PERFECTLY
• the 
• the best sounding connector I have tried
• their contact area is almost 1 square cm

The only drawback is they can work loose and only accept up to 10 gauge cables, so they may NOT be for everyone

Furez is another company that makes a very good fitting banana in plain copper or Silver plated copper

My preference of Spade:

• Furez - because they are very well designed/manufactured
• caters to different gauge wires
• offers different connection methods, screw, crimp, solder
• options of Silver plated or plain copper

BUT - this is just another opinion - FWIW :-)

Enjoy - Steve

Hello,
I would check out  Blue Jeans cables. https://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/speaker/indexmob.htm
At least for your front three speakers and your subwoofer connection. I know people say it never hurts to ask, but it sometimes can especially here. If you have to use bare wire for cost reasons then learn how to tin wire. Use a decent solder with silver in it. Parts express might have some stuff you can use. Also you can dress it up with some nylon mesh covers or heat shrink to make it look nice and protect it a little. There are a lot of videos on making cable on YouTube. Good luck and I hope this helped. 

Meh...I do not use plugs. Bare wire removes another break and joint in the path. Instead of spending a fortune, look at Neotech OCC cable on PartsConnexion. There's a new thread on 'DIY Neotech' and search for mine with 'UP-OCC'.

"...literally not one single person on the whole planet, is going to want my $7500 cable once I've chopped the terminations off. Couldn't give them away."

I'd take them for free (and screw my banana plugs on them ASAP).

Don't do this.

Be aware that it’s best to tin the ends of bare wire with solder to reduce the possibility of breaking individual wire strands.

Do this

About the problem of breaking wires or stray wires shorting, a little dab of solder on the bare wire ends will normally take care of that.

Its a 7.1 system so I need ~100ft.
I'm in the sub $200 range.  I bought the Sewell Silverback stuff.  The reality is, I'm in the mid audio class range with my equip (Denon AVR 891, Klipsch RP-8000f).  Spending $1000 on cables isnt going to buy me much.  I'm looking for good as I can get thats reasonable.

Good feedback folks thanks for the help.


Thoughts on silver plated spades from here:
https://silversonic.com/products/connectors/spade-connectors/

About the problem of breaking wires or stray wires shorting, a little dab of solder on the bare wire ends will normally take care of that.

I have never used them, but there are connectors I have seen that you feed your bare wire through and then turn two screws on the connector to tighten against the wire.  Soldering not even required.

I see you are a new member here, joining today and this is your first post, welcome to Audiogon!  Don't let member Albert Einstein above discourage you in anyway, there are many very helpful persons here more than glad to share their experiences.

I like spades.   Easy (for me) to solder nice spades to copper wire with audio grade (Cardas) solder.  Secure connection with little chance of stray wire shorting.   Plus I agree with all the issues of multi contact points and breaking wires with bare ends.  In one system I have nice builder terminated wires.   In my other I have a 33 foot run so I use double shotgun runs of 10 gauge copper wire and terminate my self.  Look at Parts Express for inexpensive good quality spades (or bananas).  Ken.

I still have a few speakers that have the clip style connectors. They are collectibles.  Changing them is out is a No No. Infinity Infinitesimals. Quite a nice bookshelf. Bare wire is a better way, when your stuck with that type of terminal.. 5 way you're better off with terminal ends, or hard wire all the way to the power amp, from the speaker crossover.. I have a time or two.

No real need for a speaker to have terminals. You can just wire them for hook up and coil if it's a bit long or trim to length.. I like to keep the cables the same length. The rest is for the convenience and window dressing.
Speaker IC and all the rest, are so we can disconnect.. Leave that out and things get a WHOLE lot LESS expensive.. Less convenient though.

Regards

As usual I have a totally different take on this, which since it is the only true and correct one you might want to read very carefully. There are precisely ZERO high end speaker cables that are sold with bare wire coming out the ends. ZERO! Why? This is a market segment where people are willing to pay vast sums for even the slightest improvement. If bare wire was better these guys would be all over it! So what if its tacky, ugly, and impractical to have to constantly twist bare wire to get it in the hole- who cares! It sounds better!!!!

BS. It does not sound better. Twisting bare wire and sticking it in a hole, or tightening down the terminals, creates a whole slew of little contact points. One of the man themes of electrical continuity and signal preservation is to eliminate exactly this sort of problem. The best contact enhancer EVER on the market, Total Contact, worked in part precisely because nano particles filled these voids resulting in a huge reduction in nano-arcing. Bare wire is creating a smorgasbord of nano-arcing.  

Also, frankly, and this is equally if not maybe even more relevant, bare wires getting twisted and clamped repeatedly tend to break. Everyone with even the slightest clue or common sense knows this. Its simply not a durable long term solution. No one- literally NO ONE!- is going to cut the professionally installed spade or banana lugs off their $5k cable, even if it does sound better (which it does NOT!) simply because its going to ruin the cable. NO ONE, literally not one single person on the whole planet, is going to want my $7500 cable once I've chopped the terminations off. Couldn't give them away. 

So the very fact this question is even being asked tells me, and everyone else with any experience, we are talking about a guy with lamp cord. The cable in question is maybe one baby step up from lamp cord. Maybe. And instead of doing the right thing, going out and finding proper cable, he wants to try and cheap out with some idea so nutty we all know it can't possibly work.

That's not even the worst. The worst is we got guys who totally know better hemming and hawing and avoiding coming out and saying what they all know is true, which is what I just said, so go read it again I am outta here.

This will work, but you'll never convince me it is a great solution, or that it will work as well in six months as it does today.