Modification of speaker cables

Bare wire is better. The transition from one material to another is always a problem because the music signal can become degraded. Spade and banana plugs are convenience items.

I just bought some over-sized MIT spades, stuffed the wire in, and topped it off with some WBT solder tonight. Cost, $20 for two pairs of spades, and 10 minutes of soldering.

When soldering, make sure U remove previous solder (or cut off) and your connection is shining (= not "cold" soldering). As Jeffloistarca, created the connection without the solder and secure it by soldering. Bare wire WILL oxydize but, as Onhwy61 notes, you'd eliminate an extra material from that conductor chain (not to mention the soldering, i.e. TWO materials?) so, better.
Good luck!

Emily, mit reconfigured some speaker wire for me, went from biwire to single for thiels, cost was $100, I'm guessing retermination is cheaper. I've used bare wire and IMO you can't really tighten down the connections enough without almost breaking the wire and it is also cleaner and safer to have terminations, then you have to worry about oxidation every few months.

I have always been a bare wire advocate, but am getting tired of re-dressing the ends of my cables when they become damaged from being taken on and off when auditioning other wire and during other general experimentation (which includes cleaning the connections every 6-8 weeks or so). I am actually considering quality (though low mass) bananas if I go with Mapleshade speaker cable and hope that I don't regret it. Bananas so that I can easily switch from a simple tube amp (with a volume pot) to a SS amp when we just want background music and when I am burning in other gear and want to leave the system on 7/24.