Best way of connecting bare wire to bare wire

Sonia, I think most here would welcome your input, given your background, especially as you've declared your 'conflict of interest'. Welcome to Audiogon!

On the topic, my method for good physical and electrical connection would be to tightly twist the ends together, solder and then heat-shrink the join.

Thanks very much for the welcome. I like the idea Carl109. Crimping can be slightly better than solder just because no solder is as good as the wire used in decent cables, but it depends on how well the crimping welds the metals together. But your suggestion is simpler, practical and will, as you say, work fine.

Hello BFrank,
While the wire nuts are cheap and effective, they look a bit unprofessional or unfinished. The Neutrik Speakon connectors (NL4FX female and NL4MMX male) would be what I would try. They run about $6 each and have set-screw or solder wire connections. Neutrik claims the contacts are rated for 50 amps! You can find more info on them at parts express-dot-com.

In general I have found Neutrik connectors to be of good quality. As to Antipodes mention of her interest in selling products- it is appreciated that you made this known. Too often there are posts from persons who argue in favor of certain products or types of products without such up front disclosure. After a little checking, one discovers that the individual regularly sells that product or one of a similar ilk. After discovering the undisclosed interest I disregard their further posts as I find the person to lack credibility. While I may disagree with the opinion of someone who has made such an up front disclosure as Antipode has, I would not discard their future posts out of hand.

Thanks for all the great responses - I've been reading a lot lately on this, it seems that solder vs. crimp is an ongoing debate. Quality of solder, quality of join, quality of crimp/crimping tool, type of wire etc etc all play factors. I read somewhere that solder *can* give the best connection, but most crimped connections are as good or better than most solder jobs (especially after some time). Also started looking at the wire nuts and there are a ton of different designs! I never knew it could get so complicated :) I guess I'll start with wire nuts and see how that works for me, since it's by far the easiest and least expensive.