Spade Lugs for Vintage Mac Amps


Hi folks, I didn't want this particular topic to continue on the other "cheap cable" thread I initiated, so I thought best to start a new one.

I did find that Cardas does make a special Spade Lug (CMSS) for the tiny McIntosh Terminal Strips so typical on older Mac Amps, but cost is naturally not cheap for the Cardas "Toys" ($11 ea., and I'll need 8 of them)

I do see that Vampire makes a Lug (BAR) for supposed small terminal Strips, and I think they'll work, but am not 100% sure, and would like to know of others have found they do indeed fit? The Amp in question is the MC-2105. TIA Mark
markd51
I just got barrier-strip-to-banana connectors from Ebay. Works great with any banana cable for only $10. Cardas also made them for a while but when I inquired about them, they never got back to me. That was three years ago. Arthur
Supposedly, doing some searching online, I seen someone make a reference to "Outposts", sold by Audio Classics, who is a large dealer of McIntosh goodies, but when I went to the site, I could find no info about these.

I would assume that in general, these would be some sort of contraption that hang off the back of the unit, having small spades that go to the terminal strip, and then untimately terminate out into Spades-Banannas-what have you (5-way binding post)

Somewhere, I seen a set made by someone? (Maybe the Anti-Cables Site, or?) where they used a pretty block of wood, set the 5-way Binding Posts upon them, and then just run leads from the pretty block of wood to the Amplifier.

Certainly, all the pretty block of wood is doing, is adding susbstantially to the cost, and offers no sonic benefit, but I can see the advantage if one has the costly pretty Boutique Cables already, and has no desire to cut them apart to re-terminate them.

For the cost they were probably asking, I would just be then better off using the correct highgrade Cardas CMSS terminations, and be done with it I guess.

As I think I mentioned, it appears the Vampire BAR Spade Lug from Welborne Labs appears to be a cheaper alternative, but I would like to get confirmation from others with Vintage Mac Gear, that these do indeed work.

I'd gather that much of the Vintage Mac Gear from way back in the 70's all used pretty much the same narrow spaced Barrier Strips. Mark
Sorry my friend, I should've elaborated a bit more, that I'm running two 2105 Mac Amps into 4 vintage L-65 Jubal Speakers, hence I would need four small Spades per Amp, therefore a total of 8 for the two Amps.

A few years back, I upgraded my JBL's from the wimpy push button wire posts that could handle no more than 16ga, to large solid copper Edison-Price 5-ways, so at the speaker end, no problem there using any mid-high grade spade-banana known to man. Mark