What say you binding posts or direct wire?


If I can get away with it I don't use BP. I find even the best like Mundorfs etc all sound inferior to direct wiring. Seems illogical to me to use costly cables hooked up to a binding post and then having just hook up wire after the posts. I get better-sounding results just by using quality speaker cable wired directly into my networks with the same cable type after to transducer. 

128x128johnk

In the case of elimination of speaker and amp binding post, I have not yet tried that tweak, I do use bare wire into the binding post. That said, I did an AC mains tweak eliminating the power cord and wall plug from my two monoblock amps, by installing the female IEC C13 plug onto the direct line from the electrical panel into the IEC inlet of the power amps. The two direct lines to the monoblock amps are 10 AWG BX/AC cable.😎 

Mike

My first McIntosh component was an MA6200 integrated amp, purchased used from an audio retailer in 1988 while it was still a current model still in production.  The speaker terminals took bare wire only and one had to hold down the spring clips with one hand while you inserted the wire into a little hole with the other. My first impression was that It was a flimsy method but it sounded great driving my Thiel speakers. Later I had the unit modified to convert one of the speaker terminal pairs (the MA6200 had 3 pairs) to accept banana plugs om pre-terminated wires. I could not discern any diminishment in sound quality and it was a hell of a lot more convenient and the wires could not be accidently pulled out.. Current MAC equipment take bananas or spades. I haven't noticed whether you could clamp bare wires in lieu of spades  - I suppose you could - but my ears are not golden so as to detect any difference,  I default to convenience.

Perhaps someone will inform my why any form of connection isn't fine as long has it has non-oxidising large contact areas and can be tightened good and tight....

I don't see why the topology should have any effect.

It might be argued that some systems are easier to work with but none of them takes more than a few minutes to connect.

For many many years I just rant bare wire connections from my amp to speakers. I just switched to a very neat array of banana plugs. When I installed the banana plugs I noticed the tarnish, grime whatever on the ends if the wires and what a mess it all looked. Now, I can say I noticed a big improvement in sound. My amp seems to put out more power that I can see on my meters, more definition, more high end etc etc. Perhaps the old connections needed the cleaning and retiring but I am more please with the banana plug connections. All looks neat clean and sounds better. That’s a win for me.

@johnk 
I must be  missing something, if you don’t have a binding post of some kind, how do you connect your speaker wires? You are not suggesting soldering your speaker wires inside your amp?