Securing spade connectors


I’ve just picked up a pair of my favorite speaker cables, Transparent Super, on the used market for a great price. Unlike my old pair, these have spade connectors. 

So it took me maybe 30 minutes to get these cables connected, the actual speaker cables and the network boxes etc are so heavy that it’s extremely difficult to prevent the spade from slipping out of the post. So I’d screw down a speaker side and then the amp end would slide out. 

And thanks to the design of the Transparent cables, the 2 ends are harder to work with because the positive and negative ends are just about 5” long where they split from the main cable, so they are extremely difficult to position and work with. And my speakers have spade jumpers so I’m double stacking the spades on the speaker side which makes it twice as hard to screw down.

I know I can probably send these back to Transparent to get re-terminated but there must be a way to make the spade connectors work… is there a better way to connect these big bastards - do people actually use wrenches to torque down the binding connector posts or is there some kind of trick to make it easier? 

jsqt

I carefully use a box wrench to gently snug them. I have one just for my system. You don’t want to crank them down. I have heard over cranking will hurt the sound quality... but I have never substantiated that claim. 

Also, I use electrical insulators from power lines to support my speaker cables. That helps support the weight of the cables and keep them aligned. You can probably see in my main system photos under my virtual systems. 

 

I own Transparent and have for decades. 

Binding posts are not designed to support weight so there is a possibility those cables can cause the posts to come loose or even damage the speaker cabinet.

You could point the spades down, wire tie the two cables above the post and loop down the cable boxes. But that still exerts a force and moment on the post.

Best to configure some kind of pedestal behind the speaker to rest the box and relieve all the cable weight.