Hello erik_squires! Just think about how much contact area there is betwen a banana plug and sleeve it goes in compared to a spade lug tightened down on a quality terminas that sandwhiches it in btween two metal surfaces. The idea is to get the signal from the amp into the speaker, right? With the minimum resistance to the flow of current, right? If you experiment a lot, bananas are quick and easy. You can "stack" them and hook up bunches of speakers in a jiffy. These days, I use locking bananas for my serious setups; no ferrous metals in the signal path. But, if I didn't experiment a lot, I'd use spades. No question. Enjoy the music!
Bananas rule, spades drool. End of discussion.
I just checked my speaker connections. All using bananas, all nice and tight.
The number of times I’ve had spades get loose instead though.....
Point is, and it really is kind of a tongue in cheek thing, bananas beat spades for long term reliability in almost all setups. If you have to use a Cardas or Mundorf speaker terminal to ensure your spades stay tight it kind of proves my point.