Shorting the speaker wires

I thought the Monsters were locking bananas. Hum........

Some DIY thoughts....

I've went through most types of connectors, including locking bananas (including the Monsters), non locking bananas of the cheap variety which have the + and - connectors encased in plastic so you only have one joint connector to each speaker. The latter will keep your wires apart and keep them from shorting out if pulled accidentially but they loose tension after a while. You can get those at your local electronics store and they are cheap. Another down side is that the cables ends will be bare and attach to the bananas with lugs which can loosen over time. Spades can work loose as can bare wire in 5 way binding posts. The best of the approved bunch was locking bananas. Properly used these are (or should be) fairly fool proof.

Here is a possible DIY solution for you which is fairly effective, cheap, and as far as I can tell has no sonic downside. At your local hardware/electronics store you can get solid copper connectors for heavy guage wire. Like spades connectors except they are not slip on U shaped but circular. The benefit is that once you attach them to your speakers (and amp) by removing the nut on the lug and slipping on the connector and replacing the nut you have got as secure a connection as exists. I connect these and the wires by connecting the bare wire ends to the connector using a vise (no soldering). Then I use a combination of electrician tape and heat shrink to protect the ends from either coming loose or making contact and shorting. The only issue is insuring the size connector matches the size of the post (some posts are bigger than others). I can't remember the size of you ARC wire, but if its is small guage, and for some reason I think it is, this might not work without soldering.

If you don't feel handy, simply get some audiophile grade locking bananas and make a rubber spacer and tape it between the bananas so that if they should get accidentially pulled out from the speaker they won't make contact and short out.

Hope that helps a bit.

The X-terminators are locking bananas but, apparently, they were not tight enough.

Kal

When you reterminate keep one wire an inch longer on one end and an inch shorter on the other end. That way if they do pull out they don't touch.

Deaf_j:

Brilliant!

I feel sort of like an idiot in saying this but when did crossing my speaker wire terminations become a stereo system catastrophy. I blew the S*** out of an SS amp by doing just that a fews years back. Now I am hyper to the extent I can muster hyerpertude.
I still have this thinking from my first days as an audiophile that you can safely touch a "live speaker wire" and must have crossed them a few hundred times in the 1970s. To this day Ralph Karsten will drop a quarter on his binding posts -that stops the sound- but once removed causes no apparent damage. So my question is literally. When did I need to be worried about this?
I bought a McIntosh 2505 that had a difference in gain between the two channels at a discoount even by used standards. I then had one chanel go altogether for no obvious reason, but I am very certain it was not idiotic crossing of speaker wires. My friend's Dad fixes all things (has an EE and experience) and managed to get this piece back into it's original state of partial disrepair. My friend told me that I shorted the S*** out of it. I denied it. He couldn't help himself and insisted I did so repeatedly because his father whom I really do admire said I did.
I knew I messed up the other times this happened this has happened all of twice, in the last 7 years. It's not exactly bland. There is no mistaking the flames if you get my gist. I simply did not this time and haven't had other problems. I never had a directly voltage coupled output from the speaker posts to my knowledge. If crossing wires were as bad as they have apparently become or were, I should be quite dead by this method which as of this writing appears to be a very innefective technique.
Obviously I take nothing for granted anymore.