Bananas rule, spades drool. End of discussion.

Oh, and PS, the contact area of a split banana is quite large.

Let me go a little Youtube snake oil on you all:

With banana plugs the electricity doesn't bend!! The electrons coming off the wire keep going straight, ,but with spades it has to do a 90 degree turn!! Of course this affect sound staging because of all the phase noise. 

🤣

@erik_squires 

I like this topic. So, serious question for you: 

What about banana plugs that compress and get looser over time?

I agree with Erik having found a loose spade or two. I will second locking bananas as the best solution and one that I believe bumps up the surface area in contact with the speaker. The spade issue has always stuck me as something fairly easy to fix with a spring or lock washer, but then there will we will need 7n OCC gold plated versions of those too.

@hilde45 - I’ve never encountered one in the wild.  I have no way of statistically examining a sample of every connection ever made to a speaker.  All I can do is talk directly about my experience and I've never had a banana come loose just because. 

I can't say that about spades, at all.

I have seen the cords pull out of a banana plug at a dealer, but that was nothing to do with the banana to speaker side, and I'd expect it had more to do with the wear and tear dealers put on their cables while switching demo speakers.