Terminate This: Bare Wire vs Connectors



Called a local dealer to inquire about the types of “High Performance” spades they stock. Their reply: “Why do you want to terminate your speaker wire, when bare wire is the best means of transferring the signal?” I’ve heard this before. I can’t remember why I started using spades in the first place. Perhaps I felt that because whatever the heck Rhodium was it sounded exotic enough to be the next best thing in signal transfer. Was it to prevent oxidation? Anyway, what say the Agon community – bare wire or connectors, why and why not??
2chnlben
Bare it is! I'm pretty sure the reason I started using spades was due to not wanting to deal with oxidation. Regarding tinning, I was going to get some silver to tin the ends, but I was also told that tinning with any type solder would decrease surface area conductivity. You see, you just can't have the old proverbial cake and eat it too.
IMO bare wire sounds the best as well. I use some silver-bearing solder and tinn only the very ends of the cables. I want the copper (Untinned) on the binding post.
Pick your poison, no one can hear the difference anyway. For the record, I like banana plugs.
Spades, bare wire oxidizes and will weaken and break when clamped and unclamped in a binding post. Tinned wire will solve these issues but its actually contact area is very small in comparison with a spade.
I use bare copper cable and once a year trim off and restrip about 1 inch to deal with oxidisation.
The cables gradually get shorter, but there's my excuse to upgrade every few years!