Best way of connecting bare wire to bare wire

If the connection at the speaker end will accept banana plugs, Audioquest makes a banana that slides over solid wire and there's a set screw that holds it in place.

I would solder them together.

I would choose crimping over soldering if it was practical.

I am a cable manufacturer that has just joined Audiogon, so I am not sure if its OK for me to comment here. Soldering is a good idea for joining wire. I would slightly favour getting a WBT crimp sleeve of an appropriate size, slip both ends in and perform a high pressure crimp. Then give it a coating of some anti-oxidising agent and heat shrink it to minimise air contact.

This may not be so practical for a one off job as buying a couple of sleeves may be tricky, unless you have a friendly dealer that has a stock. And you would want to borrow his crimp tool if you didn't have one.

Using a solid sleeve with screws, in my opinion adds too much metal to the transmission line and will pick up noise, and the potential for eddy currents, and therefore some small time smearing of the signal. That is only theory however, and whether you can hear the difference is a matter of conjecture.

Tell me if I shouldn't be doing this as I intend to market our cables here soon, and I don't want to upset anyone.

Sonia

I believe there's nothing wrong with commenting/posting, as long as you disclose the fact that you are a cable manufacturer.