AudioCircle
Audio/Video Gear and Systems => The Lab => Topic started by: earwig on 14 Jul 2017, 11:22 am
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Has anyone ever heard of these Chinese made Choseal Q940 banana plug set? They say they are high purity copper with gold plating and they look very simple and look pretty.Once I can find out where to get some from a good source I will get some to try out . It seems to offer a very reasonable low price too . Good for DIY speaker wiring up project to replace my old MIT terminator 4 bi-wire which tends to have a somewhat bloated sound to it.Also there is a cheaper Q906 without the sleeves too. google those on images
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Don't know anything about them but I like these BFA style better.
This is for 4 ends.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Choseal-Q-907-4N-OFC-pin-24K-golden-Plated-5mm-banana-Plug-no-welding-banana-Plug/32812859012.html?spm=2114.search0302.4.34.dG2h5t
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BFAs are never pure copper, it's likely they are lying.
And here's the same thing for 20x less $$...
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Russian-hotsale-1pair-black-red-Banana-plug-Nakamichi-24K-Gold-Plated-Copper-BFA-4mm-Banana-connector/32791705513.html?traffic_analysisId=recommend_3035_null_null_null&scm=1007.13338.80878.000000000000000&pvid=36bc0b86-dbb2-4243-9c12-f771ac429de7&tpp=1
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Not exactly the same terminal type but I use Sewel Silverbacks and like them a lot. They fit snugly and the compression fingers don't spin on the shaft like some others of the same type that I've used.
https://sewelldirect.com/sewell-silverback-banana-plugs-12-pair
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Has anyone ever heard of these Chinese made Choseal Q940 banana plug set? They say they are high purity copper with gold plating and they look very simple and look pretty.Once I can find out where to get some from a good source I will get some to try out . It seems to offer a very reasonable low price too . Good for DIY speaker wiring up project to replace my old MIT terminator 4 bi-wire which tends to have a somewhat bloated sound to it.Also there is a cheaper Q906 without the sleeves too. google those on images
Misleading advertising. May possibly be, say, Tellurium copper, but gold-plated OFC is not likely. And yeah, there are a zillion cheaper versions. You really have to do the research on these before buying. But they're still cheap enough so maybe try em out and let us know what you think.
I wonder, if someone wants to test the metal composition of these items, who could you send them to test that? Must be pretty easy to do.
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Most of the BFA / Z style plugs I have seen are made from beryllium copper alloys that are needed to provide spring tension (like the Multi-Contact LS4 that I use).
The only plugs of that style I have seen that use a more conductive copper are the Furez banana plugs made from C14500 93% IACS Tellurium copper and use an elastomeric insert for tension. They are also available in a silver-plated version that has a 105% conductivity.
They're not cheap, though, going for ~ $15/pair for the bare copper version and ~ $25/pair for the silver-plated version. (They don't seem to offer a gold-plated version).
(http://www.audiocircle.com/image.php?id=70547)
Steve
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Most of the BFA / Z style plugs I have seen are made from beryllium copper alloys that are needed to provide spring tension (like the Multi-Contact LS4 that I use).
The only plugs of that style I have seen that use a more conductive copper are the Furez banana plugs made from C14500 93% IACS Tellurium copper and use an elastomeric insert for tension. They are also available in a silver-plated version that has a 105% conductivity.
They're not cheap, though, going for ~ $15/pair for the bare copper version and ~ $25/pair for the silver-plated version. (They don't seem to offer a gold-plated version).
(http://www.audiocircle.com/image.php?id=70547)
Steve
That looks like an excellent choice.
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Most of the BFA / Z style plugs I have seen are made from beryllium copper alloys that are needed to provide spring tension (like the Multi-Contact LS4 that I use).
The only plugs of that style I have seen that use a more conductive copper are the Furez banana plugs made from C14500 93% IACS Tellurium copper and use an elastomeric insert for tension. They are also available in a silver-plated version that has a 105% conductivity.
They're not cheap, though, going for ~ $15/pair for the bare copper version and ~ $25/pair for the silver-plated version. (They don't seem to offer a gold-plated version).
(http://www.audiocircle.com/image.php?id=70547)
Steve
i never even heard of this company. what are the diffrences betweeb the sizes? i mean in action. as in the bigger size would not be compatible with some amps or speakers maybe? I would like to give them a try.
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srb,
Is this your source?
http://www.douglasconnection.com/Furez-Products_c20.htm (http://www.douglasconnection.com/Furez-Products_c20.htm)
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what are the diffrences betweeb the sizes?
The diameter of the split tube for all models is sized for standard 4mm binding posts; the differences in models are the cable entry ID / wire gauge size. The minimalist Crimp/Solder version (with or without aluminum shell) comes in three sizes:
TST-W25xx 2.5mm (.102") 14 AWG
TST-W30xx 3.1mm (.122") 12 AWG
TST-W38xx 3.81mm (.150") 10 AWG
The larger body Set Screw versions (40/50/60) can accommodate larger wire sizes down to the 7 AWG - 4 AWG range.
Is this your source?
http://www.douglasconnection.com/Furez-Products_c20.htm (http://www.douglasconnection.com/Furez-Products_c20.htm)
Yes.
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How about the Viborg pure copper bananas they seem much more thicker metal content in them? Why do they have to put plastic inserts inside the copper tube section of the Furez. Does that mean the metal is thin and soft and would bend or twist easy? Perhap if they made the copper thicker,hmm?
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Why do they have to put plastic inserts inside the copper tube section of the Furez. Does that mean the metal is thin and soft and would bend or twist easy? Perhap if they made the copper thicker,hmm?
No, pure copper is relatively soft and malleable and doesn't spring back into shape like the (less conductive) beryllium copper alloy used in most other BFA plugs. The elastomeric insert is what provides the tension to make a tight connection.
The Viborg plug is a different design that uses a single phosphor bronze contact pin to provide tension. I don't know if that insures as much surface area contact as a tapered BFA barrel with equal circumferential tension or not.
Steve
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The elastomer is there for vibration control from what I have read.
Do you need that? Hmmmm
It all depends on what you want to spend and how anal are you? :scratch:
Differences in sound on all these? You figure it out.
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The elastomer is there for vibration control from what I have read.
"The Furez Tensioned Split Tube Banana (TST) is designed to provide optimized contact pressure by using a solid elastomeric tensioning element. This tensioning element provides the spring force required to enable the use of softer high conductivity copper."
Steve
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For the cost I had these on a pair of Kimber 8TC and what I'm using now the BFA spring steel gold plated from Take 5 Audio were better. As I said depends what ya wanna to spend. Better yet use bare ends no connector. I like the convenience though.
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The Viborg seems simular to the high quality QED and Black Rhodium banana style plugs from England but those ones are most probably just gold plated brass. The difference seems to be Viborg uses a " copper/gold plt" pipe instead . If the wire sticking out the length side slot was even just made of gold plated spring steel it would not matter as the electrical current would prefere the better copper pipe anyways and press into the walls for contact.I would think this British style would have a much stronger thicker copper than a thin Furez copper bfa supported by a plastic core that would be more likely to crack under pressure.Oh and if you like to spend more money theres an interesting locking banana much like the wbt for $34 usd (x4) called the "1877" CF-B6 gold /copper at partsconnextion and they look very nice too Im considering. Also I have no previous experiance with these two types but mayby someone has ,so let me know what you think.
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How can one have 105% conductivity? Seems to violate the laws of physics.
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How can one have 105% conductivity? Seems to violate the laws of physics.
you have to ask yourself %105 of what? what is the baseline? I think that they have chosen their copper connector as the baseline and have measured the silver one to have %105 which means 5% better conductivity. so no it doesnt violate the laws of physics, it is just conveniently vague. just marketing nonsense really. most of these measurements dont mean much unless they come with 6 pages of parameters, details, conditions that the test took place under, and definitions for what they are measuring and why and with what tolerances.
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you have to ask yourself %105 of what? what is the baseline? ..... it is just conveniently vague. just marketing nonsense really .....
It's not vague or marketing nonsense. IACS (International Annealed Copper Standard) was developed to compare the electrical conductivity of copper.
Using the conductivity of commercially available annealed copper (resistivity of 1.7241x10-8 ohm/meter at 20°C) as a baseline of 100%, it is also used to compare the conductivity of other metals and alloys to copper.
https://www.bluesea.com/resources/108/Electrical_Conductivity_of_Materials
Steve
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It's not vague or marketing nonsense. IACS (International Annealed Copper Standard) was developed to compare the electrical conductivity of copper.
Using the conductivity of commercially available annealed copper (resistivity of 1.7241x10-8 ohm/meter at 20°C) as a baseline of 100%, it is also used to compare the conductivity of other metals and alloys to copper.
https://www.bluesea.com/resources/108/Electrical_Conductivity_of_Materials
Steve
Wow they got to you huh?
The concept of conductivity is ofcourse bogus. There is no such thing. Wake up America and open your eyes. I was obviously not talking about this particular company and this particular pruduct when I called it vague I was ofcourse referring to the concept of conductivity in general which is a liberal gray muslim invention designed to increase taxes on decent eagle fucking Americans.
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Here is a source: http://www.douglasconnection.com/Banana-Connectors_c11.htm (http://www.douglasconnection.com/Banana-Connectors_c11.htm)
Doug is a good man to do business with.
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Posted already, thanks.
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So if i pushed in some rubber or plastic into some cheap nakamichi bfa plugs would that make it better? :lol:
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Maybe. It needs to be elastomeric (springy) so as to keep outward pressure constant. But as it has been said mostBFA plugs are made of steel with plating. I have a set of Analysis Plus Silver Ovals with BFA plugs and they always have good tension.
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Im not really familiar with the bfa type, I generally liked the good ole fashioned four leafed regular plugs depending on tensile strenght and thickness of the leafs the heavy duty electronic shop ones never seem to be much trouble for me. But I have had these Magnat bananas that had softer more copper content in the four leafs tended to squoosh up flat and loose up in the sockets. Thus it hard to get anything pure copper to spring.Too bad theres no way to melt my 1 lb of very old antique pure silver cutlery. Id melt those into bfas if I could :wink: or mayby a lug? The worst ones are the metal cage spring ones that twirl around the post loosely and break easy like the ones I got on my mit wire ends.Im not too keen on those thick clunky wbt plugs but they do lock up open inside ,im not sure about those.All I do know its in the tip ends that counts that tends to be ingnored stuff that comes up behind the tip like screws n posts.
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But as it has been said most BFA plugs are made of steel with plating.
I don't know who said that but there is no steel (iron) in beryllium copper or "spring" copper. Maybe the word spring makes people think of steel. Beryllium copper is generally made from copper, beryllium, cobalt and nickel. It has less conductivity of course than pure copper, but still a good choice for electrical contacts requiring spring tension qualities.
I haven't personally used the Furez copper plugs, but the elastomeric insert is one interesting and possible method to provide outward tension on the almost pure copper split tube.
"Plastic" is a very wide and general material classification, but more specifically, elastomeric or viscoelastic polymers such as Sorbothane have been around for ~ 35 years and so far have shown excellent resistance to age hardening or cracking.
Steve
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I recommend Bluejeanscable locking banana plugs. They sell them for $7.50 a pair.
They provide foolproof VERY secure speaker connections.
https://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/speaker/index.htm
Scroll down on that page to find them.
Frank Van Alstine
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I don't know who said that but there is no steel (iron) in beryllium copper or "spring" copper.
Steve
My bad, the following stuck in my brain:
For the cost I had these on a pair of Kimber 8TC and what I'm using now the BFA spring steel gold plated from Take 5 Audio were better. As I said depends what ya wanna to spend. Better yet use bare ends no connector. I like the convenience though.
Get up on the wrong side of the bed yesterday morning? Not to mention the references to politics and religion. :scratch: :nono:
Wow they got to you huh?
The concept of conductivity is of course bogus. There is no such thing. Wake up America and open your eyes. I was obviously not talking about this particular company and this particular pruduct when I called it vague I was ofcourse referring to the concept of conductivity in general which is a liberal gray muslim invention designed to increase taxes on decent eagle fucking Americans.
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I recommend Bluejeanscable locking banana plugs. They sell them for $7.50 a pair.
They provide foolproof VERY secure speaker connections.
https://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/speaker/index.htm
Scroll down on that page to find them.
Frank Van Alstine
For cheaper bananas those are very good. The Furez look nice and probably sound nice too, but will corrode over time being bare copper or silver plated. I'm also dubious their design will work well over time as copper isn't designed to flex, that's why BFAs are usually spring bronze as the material IS designed to flex. Furutech FT-212 if you want locking and pure copper, but not cheap.
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My bad, the following stuck in my brain:
Get up on the wrong side of the bed yesterday morning? Not to mention the references to politics and religion. :scratch: :nono:
HUH? WTF you talking about? You better go take some meds.
You better read before posting your comment I see now was directed to
Dadbeh
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^
I'm just gonna ignore that.
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I guess ill just have to go down to the electronic shop bring me a strong little magnet and try it on some Nakamichi bfas its the best way to find steel . I saved like a few hundred or so Canadian copper pennies. I found some got pulled up by a magnet some not.Generally all the older ones passed the magnet test.Now I know which was copper which was not.Actually some bronze has steel in it looks like copper but the magnet will find it.I found some very springy coppery non-magnetic looking parts that don't stay bent easy and that don't seem to tarnish it stays pretty shiney too I found from military surplus electronic junk I collected. It like looks like it could be a really great alloy to use. So is that actually beryllium copper?.I think just good hard neoprene rubber would be a good bfa filler.The Furez would be good if it had gold plate for corrosion resistance .
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The Furez would be good if it had gold plate for corrosion resistance.
Yes, it's a bit puzzling why they don't offer a gold-plated version. :scratch:
My mentioning the Furez was to acknowledge that there was a BFA-style plug that used nearly pure copper, (and its somewhat unique elastomeric insert tension design) but probably wouldn't actually purchase either unplated copper or silver-plated plugs of any style for the inevitable aforementioned oxidation.
Steve
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Yes I would like it to have a non-oxidizing plate over bare copper to keep the oxegen out.Perhaps Rhodium would be the best although Im not sure if its conductivity rivals gold or not.Silver would blacken up and look ugly but still retain reasonable good conductivity through the oxegenated silver and copper oxides would downgrade the conductivity at the contact points and appear ugly too.Gold is great and very nice looking but much cheaper gold bananas has a nickel base underplate .Mayby if Furez could plate gold over the silver plate version that would be a better sell mayby .The ordinary type plug Sewell an Choseal sound more interesting mayby with the Viborg tc-8 wires. I tried the magnet test on the Nakamichi bfa ,no steel .Tried monster and a few other too ,no magnetism. Well it was an interesting conversation anyways I doubt theres going to be much difference except that that I hope the contacts remain tight and and don't loose up.Then theres my wbt binding posts only 52% copper so what good are pure copper going to do anyways?Thank you