Crimping bare speaker cable connections

When I had my house electrical service changed recently I noticed the electrician using a paste on the aluminum cables when he connected them to the copper connectors of the house wires. This prevents corrosion and is essential for aluminum wire connections, but would work just as well for copper. The stuff is readily available and cheap. If you use it you can forget about periodic cleaning of your wires.

Eldartford makes a good point about the non-corrosion paste but I don't have a clue about its sonic characteristics. It works well on car battery connections too.

Mijknarf, I've use the Radio Shack silver solder. Every report I've read is very positive about it. I used it to solder bannana plugs to my speaker cables. I'm happy with it. Radio Shack also sells a butane soldering iron for very little money. They have various tips for other purposes too. Everyone should own one.

i have noticed some cable manufactures (tara) fill the empty space with wax and to prevent corresion (not a bad idea)

but in looking at the situation and being a audiophile....how many of us actually keep a pair of speaker cable 2 to 3 years ?

i am on my 6th pair in 2 years.. ( that is pretty scary now that i think about it)

hope that helps,

mike

Thanks for the clarification Lug. Have you done this with success? I may just try it.

Mijknarf,

I've used the silver solder and the butane iron a bunch and not just with audio. The butane iron/torch is just too cool. I honestly don't know how I would have done my hotrod wiring without it. I've never had the need to solder bare wire as described in the thread head so I can't speak with any personal knowledge about that issue. One hint to anyone doing this to bare wire is once the solder is one the wire and you have removed the heat source quickly flick the wire and all the excess solder will splatter on the ground. You will then have a "tinned" bare wire that is dimensionally very similar to what you started with. I hope you understand what I've described, and yes, it would be a good idea to flick the solder in the garage. It just sweeps up.