Why terminate speaker wire?

I run bare wire at the speaker ends and amp ends, it sounds best that way.

Mike

No oxidation would not be an issue in my opinion because silver oxide is a very good conductor. I think your initial thoughts are on track.

I've used bare wire ends with 47 Labs OTA 26 gauge solid core copper (used a speaker cable) for almost 20 years now without any problems.

In the early stages I would strip/replentish the ends every year, or so, but as I noticed no oxidation when doing so I abandoned the procedure.

This was on the amp end as I generally soldered the cables directly to my various single driver speakers.

The few  times I tried soldered or screw type connectors the SQ went South.

However this would most likely be dependent on the cable/connectors used as well as the system itself.

My rational is that reducing large metal masses in the signal path is a good thing and with this thought in mind my 47 Labs RCA connectors contain zero metal aside from the copper cable used in the interconnects.

DeKay

Makes no difference.

There's people that prefer bare, and there's people that prefer terminated. Both sides claim the same improvements in SQ. In theory bare should perform better as spades or banana plugs are another link in the chain that could degrade the signal. The most commonly cited benefits of termination are protection from oxidation, and protection from damage.