bananas vs spades as terminals for speaker cables

Ryriken - Many amps don't support bananas. My old Cambridge A3i supported only spades. My current Rowland 102 (and perhaps all current Rowland amps) have Cardas style clamp - for spades only.

As for the sound, if there is any difference then according to people opinions the best is bare wire (not always possible) then spades followed by bananas.

I prefer spades over bananas. But if you are going to use either use good quality jacks for your connections and treat them too with ProGold, etc.
My experience with Bananas have been mixed and mostly at the speaker end. My amp will only handle spades. I kept getting this weird buzzing noise in my Spicas when certain frequencies were played. I tightened my drivers, the spikes on my stands and anything that wasn't tightened. The problem was with my banana connections. They were vibrating inside the 5 way binding post. I have some other wires with much better bananas and when I tried them or the spades the buzzing just went away. I tried the same set of buzzing bananas again and yeap, thats what it was. I tried spreading them and still the noise persisted. The better quality Bananas have never buzzed. But I never have any of those problems with spades. I just clean them every now and then and the electrical connection is great and sounds good too. Less hassle.

I think they are all, "set and forget" unless the gear is getting moved more than a couple inches. then spades arebest.

I've heard no diffs in sound quality from one to another. I prefer Bananas. Far easier to deal with and hook up to nearly anything, especially on cramped rear panels like with processors and receivers.

With spades you have to concern yourself with thier spread or size and the binding posts size too. What sort of connectig nut, thumb screws, etc.

I especially like the Z bananas from SR. They fit better than the non expansion solid types.

the note above on using Pro gold too is a good one.... or any contact enhancer for that matter.

What has not been brought into consideration here is the need for periodic cleaning of the contacts and connectors throughout the system. From my experience after about 3 to 6 months the system became boring. A good thorough cleaning of all connectors brought everything back to life. The choice of spades or banana connectors will ultimately dictate the convenience of cleaning them. Set it and forget it? I wouldn't buy into that notion if you want to keep everything in optimal condition.

I think its just personal preference. I have had good results with both spades and bananas, though I prefer bare wire since all connectors affect the sound one way or another.