[woodsyi]

I have always wondered if there is a definitive guide to what termination method should be used for a particular type of wire/insulation/geometry.  Aside from convinience, why terminate with spades, bananas, or pins?   Is tinning/soldering good or bad for the oh-so-important purity of signal? 

[woodsyi]

No one with a favorite recipe?    I have 32' of 12 gauge magnet wire coming.  I guess I will try bare and compare with the Anticable with spades that I already have.  I could make another pair with tinned ends and check them out too. I think that's what I will do.

[crossroadazn]

After bananas, spades I went back to tin bared ends for easy managements.

[texendo]

Bottom line: each additional connection, joint, wire, etc degrades the signal to some degree.  In other words, no termination is the best termination.  Pierre from Mapleshade Records tweaking fame told me once his way to connect two wires (i.e. out wire from an amp to the speaker cable) was with a pure copper bolt-and-nut style clamp.  Never tried this particular approach before, but I have heard the results of getting rid of wire terminations, binding posts, etc.  Now I am very particular about it.  I have no binding posts, no crossover, and no wire crimps.

[Dan Banquer]

I prefer a snub nose 38 at close range.
            d.b.

[mfsoa]

Anyone ever use nail polish to reduce (eliminate?) corrosion of copper near terminations?

Got the idea from Matthew Bond of Tara, but never tried.

[StevenACNJ]

On both the amp & speaker I prefer Cardas Patented binding posts.

For speaker cable termination I would use one of these cryo spade connectors:

  http://www.cryo-parts.com/spade.html

[Bill Baker]

Hi woodsyi,

 Everyone has their preferences. I like banana plugs for convenience as I am always swapping wires. Spades may provide you with a better contact. I am a firm believer in low-mass connection. Why energize more metal than necessary.

 I would start with bare ends and go from there if you find the need.

Anyone ever use nail polish to reduce (eliminate?) corrosion of copper near terminations?

Yes but it becomes a dielectric and can effect the sound/characteristic of the cable or whatever it is applied to. IMHO

[Wayne1]

This is written by Jon Risch and in the FAQ section at Audio Asylum:

*How should I terminate my speaker cable?

First, if all your amp/receiver has those spring loaded terminals, there are not a whole lot of options. The gold plated pins that are available for such connectors are not an improvement over a good bare stripped wire connection. If you have spring loaded terminals, save your money and forget the gold-plated pins, use the bare wire, twist it hard and tight, and insert it naked. If the total wire thickness allows, double the wire over, and jam the doubled-up wire into the terminal opening, you want as much spring pressure on it as possible. I do not recommend tinning such a conection, and if you have some disposable speaker cable length, about every 6 months, cut off the oxidized exposed bare wire, and start fresh.

Those of you with gold-plated heavy duty 5-way binding posts, the choice here is clear: gold plated spades, preferably properly crimped. If you can not make a proper crimp via a crimping tool, then a proper solder joint will be very close in quality to a good crimp. Amazingly enough, the gold plated spades offered by RS are OK, one of the few RS parts I can recommend at all. The very best spades are the type with compression washers built into the spade fingers, such as the WBT and the Kimber Postmaster spades.

After spade lugs, the next best connection is a gold-plated expanding/locking banana plug. Standard non-expanding or non-locking banana plugs with a nickel plating are not very good at all, nor are the cheap gold-plated kinds at RS. Monster and WBT make the good types of banana plugs. "

Here is another post By Jon Risch answering the question: Why Terminate solid core copper wires?

"Copper is very soft, expecially very pure copper. Hand tighten a bare wire ESPECIUALLY TWO TWISTED TOGETHER, and the contact will not be optimal.
Try tugging on the connection and see if it mnoves or can be made to come loose. If it moves or comes loose, then it is not tight enough.

In order to tighten down hard enough to assure a good contact, a lot of pressure should be used. The only way to do this is to have a hard base metal, brass or a copper alloy, and have a nice soft gold plating over this to smash together with the binding posts (which hopefully also use gold plating). Spade lugs crimped to the cable are ideal for this. Tighten as much as possible by hand, and then use a pliers to go just a little further (too much and some chaep binding posts will come loose, etc.)

Hand tightened bare copper, EVEN solid wires, just are not a good clean contact. Forget stranded, and don't even think about tinning them, this is the worst!!! "

[woodsyi]

I prefer a snub nose 38 at close range.
            d.b.

I don't understand why snub nose.  Why couldn't a long barrel be used?

r.y.

[Dan Banquer]

You don't need a long barrel at close range.
        d.b.

[Wayner]

I prefer dual banana connectors. If you are really concerned about the wire loosening on the banana, tin the wire first with the wire flattened out. This creates a seat for the set screw to lock the tinned wire in place.

For those that like to direct connect, I have found that that connection always loosens up from the speaker vibrations.

I have a concern for the increasing popularity of using solid copper wire that is enamel coated as speaker wire. If the coatings ever break down with ware or a nick, you will have a dead short. Good bye power amplifier, hello fire. This wire in a coil, if ever shorted out as in a crossover network just becomes a piece of wire (depending where the short is). How are you going to manage wire like this? Just wondering. Why is plain old insulated 16 gauge wire a bad thing now?

W

[woodsyi]

Thanks everyone for the replies.  I think I am going to go with crimping spades for the solid magnet wire.  It looks like thats what Paul Speltz used except they are not gold plated copper.  Instead of a crimping tool, I may use a snub nose .38 to insure a good contact. 

[bgewaudio]

I use spade lugs on mine, find it offers a more solid contact than with others, barewire is never a good idea, yes it omits one more link in the chain, but when copper is connected with dissimilar metals over time the copper will oxidize (turning yucky brown) which degrades the signal.