Bare vs. terminated speaker cable

Doublej · « **on:** 18 Mar 2006, 09:52 pm »

Is there any advantage to teminating speaker cables with spades or banana plugs over using them bare?

warnerwh · « **Reply #1 on:** 19 Mar 2006, 06:39 am »

Bare wire you need to be careful with. You must make sure not a single strand shorts the output of the amp. Other than that, not really. I find spades and Z type bananas easy to use. If you never switch out your speaker cable then I wouldn't worry about it. Some people think bare wire is the best way to go.

Roger A. Modjeski · « **Reply #2 on:** 19 Mar 2006, 07:07 am »

My favorite is 16 ga lamp cord up to about 10' length, heavier if over 10' (add 3 ga every time your double the length for the same resistance). A good thing to know is that 10' of 16 ga wire has only 0.08 ohms total.

Banannas are great for quick swaps, but I prefer to tin the stranded wire and tighten it down in the binding post hole (if it's big enough and doesn't guillotine the wire by having the side hole too high). Soak it full of solder so the strands are all united. Alternatively bend the tinned wire into a loop that fits close around the inner diameter of the post. Here tinning is essential to make the loop.

Roger

Doublej · « **Reply #3 on:** 19 Mar 2006, 10:57 pm »

Roger,

I've been folllowing this speaker cable recommendation for years. I use 12 gauge copper, nothing fancier yet. I haven't done antyhing with the ends though. Wire tinning sounds like a good idea.

What's your philosophy on interconnects?

SCUBADON · « **Reply #4 on:** 20 Mar 2006, 02:17 am »

Bare wire treated with Silclear from Mapleshades. I am using 10GA magnet wire.

Folsom · « **Reply #5 on:** 20 Mar 2006, 04:22 am »

I certainly recommend some thing with good properties...

Magnet wire, inductor foil (my next speaker cables), or perhaps some 89259/9259 (9259 is not fun to solder but it works amazing, so good I would not terminate it with any thing less than pure copper, otherwise I would tin it with silver solder, or not at all)

Never touch any commercial stuff like Monster 10 guage or some thing... I actually temporarly used some until I got some thing else... Night and day difference, normal stranded stuff that can not be measured to say comparitive capacitance of some thing decent, is not worth your time. Just stay away from any thing commercial grade. When I say that I do not mean spend a lot of money, just go with stuff like Canare or cheap Belden power wire or some thing at the least.

Roger A. Modjeski · « **Reply #6 on:** 20 Mar 2006, 05:20 am »

Quote from: Doublej

Roger,

I've been folllowing this speaker cable recommendation for years. I use 12 gauge copper, nothing fancier yet. I haven't done antyhing with the ends though. Wire tinning sounds like a good idea.

What's your philosophy on interconnects?

Tining is worth the small effort and keeps things much cleaner over time. Otherwise strands are going here and there. Be sure to twist the strands tight before tining.

For interconnects, I recommend things low in capacitance. Belden makes some good cable, or mogami, or columbia. Some cables have so much capacitance they cause high frequecy rolloff in the audio band. No wonder people hear a difference. If you were bothered by a system being too bright, that would sure cure it. Of course you could get the same effect with a 50 cent capacitor. Its easy to find cable 15-20 Pf per foot which would be ok up to about 25 feet. (500 pF total). Its also not unusual to see cable being 50 pf per foot or more.

roger

Paul_Bui · « **Reply #7 on:** 20 Mar 2006, 06:02 am »

Bare wire, tinned maybe, soldered directly to the speaker's driver terminations, thus bypassing the speaker's binding posts.

Folsom · « **Reply #8 on:** 20 Mar 2006, 06:19 am »

Any cable with a capacitor I have heard sucks. Not a fan of doing any thing to cables. It might increase the bass but I think they DESTROY it's definition.

skrivis · « **Reply #9 on:** 20 Mar 2006, 03:11 pm »

Quote from: Paul_Bui

Bare wire, tinned maybe, soldered directly to the speaker's driver terminations, thus bypassing the speaker's binding posts.

Hmmm.... won't that wind up being a bad thing if the cables ever get pulled by accident?

The effects caused by binding posts and banana plugs are swamped by the crossover, drivers, enclosure, and even speaker wire.

Things like Pomona banana plugs and jacks are used in some very expensive precision test equipment. If they don't cause any harm there, they're not likely to cause any harm in your stereo system either.

skrivis · « **Reply #10 on:** 20 Mar 2006, 03:16 pm »

Quote from: Roger A. Modjeski

Tining is worth the small effort and keeps things much cleaner over time. Otherwise strands are going here and there. Be sure to twist the strands tight before tining.

For interconnects, I recommend things low in capacitance. Belden makes some good cable, or mogami, or columbia. Some cables have so much capacitance they cause high frequecy rolloff in the audio band. No wonder people hear a difference. If you were bothered by a system being too bright, that would sure cure it. Of course you could get the ...

Blue Jeans Cable makes some very good ICs. They're not that expensive and they're built extremely well. (http://www.bluejeanscable.com/)

I also have some generic ICs with gold-plated ends that I got from PartsExpress. They're more than adequate for the short runs in most people's systems. (I think they were around $1.50 ea. They're cheap enough that I can get new cables every few years and just throw the old ones away.)

Paul_Bui · « **Reply #11 on:** 20 Mar 2006, 05:41 pm »

I'm willing to sacrifice convenience, safety and look for a bit more of signal purity. By driver I meant single drivers so no crossovers involved here. If I would be and could be more of a DIYer, I would attempt to solder speaker wires directly between driver terminations and amplifier's outputs, thus bypassing ALL binding posts. I'd also like to connect source and amp with interconnects sans IC plugs nor IC jacks. YMMV, of course.