What say you binding posts or direct wire?

I use the binding posts on my 3 amps (Neutrik connectors on the bass bin amp), as well as the EV bass bin (simple screw terminals with star screws - industrial style) and subs (Neutrik connectors). The EV compression driver sits exposed in free air, and so the Mundorf silver/gold solid-core wires are connected directly to its screw terminals from the Belles amp (no passive XO's in between; actively configured). Haven't tried bypassing the amp binding posts, nor the ones on the speaker sections mentioned - don't know if I care to, but I suspect there'd be a sonic advantage avoiding them, like Johns findings dictate.  

What I don't use on the speaker cables is any kind of termination like banana plugs or spades, except the sub cables which have Neutrik connectors on the sub side. The Mundorf wires do get a silver sulfide layer after time exposed to air, but I polish that away on a regular basis. 

I also don't use a power rail to my power cables, but have the respective bare solid-core copper wire ends bundled in copper screw terminals. Works very well. 

@carlsbad wrote:

I am a believer in the low mass theory of connections. [...]

+1. At one point owned a pair of Raidho Ayra C1's (later upgraded to C1.1) which were born natively with rather chunky WBT gold-plated terminals. Then Lars and Michael invited me and some other Raidho owners to their factory/demo facilities in north Jutland for a demo of the yet-to-be-released new C4's, and at the same juncture asked us (if we cared) to bring along our Raidho Ayra series speakers to have their WBT terminals replaced with the own developed low mass, simple looking and pure copper dittos, and it made for an obvious sonic improvement. 

Forest for the trees, as they say. Terminals amount to gadgetry in audiophilia; the more they cost and the more impressive they look the more they're very often sought after. In this case certainly: less is more. 

Vandersteen uses small spade lugs/screws on his speakers.....interesting

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.