Question for users of bare wire ends speaker cable

First spread some flux on the wood panel that you will be using for soldering (some small plywood piece should work)
with hot iron melt the flux and dip(or thread through) your bare wire through the flux equally spreading it over the wire surface with the hot iron.

Than(if you're using a RadioShack silver solder) cut approximately 1 ring of solder and melt it inside the spreaded flux and thread through the bare wire equally spreading solder over the bare wire surface.

Define for yourself how often you need to clean soldered ends(and sometimes binding posts as well) simply by checking it's surface once in a while starting from once per week.

I was advised by the person who upgraded my Qud ESL 63's to use bare speaker cable wires, tinned. Then I was advised by another expert to use spade lugs instead, which I did. The spades made the system sound enormously better. I'm sure this is just one man's experience, and may not carry over, but for what it's worth, I thought I'd throw it in. I used good solder too, and then mediocre spade lugs at first.

Tom,Spade lugs on the bare wire or on the tinned ends?

First crimp your spades onto bare clean copper. Then if you wish, apply some solder to additionally seal the crimp connection from oxidizing, but don't solder onto the lugs' flat connecting surface where it meets the binding post.

I really haven't compared tinned (soldered) wire versus bananas versus spades for sound quality. I have had difficulty in fitting the tinned wires through the holes in the speaker terminals, though.

Sugarbrie ... to be clear I wasn't vouching for the audio quality of soldered wire ... just letting you know how to solder large pieces of wire (where getting the wire hot enough can be a challenge, especially with a small soldering iron).

With 5 cats and an infant roaming the house mechanical integrety rates high for me, so if the wire's too fat to go through the holes in the speaker terminals then I put spades on (Soldered just like Bob said to do) and do them up really tight.