Can I connect speaker wire this way...?

Not a problem, just make sure if they are stranded that no strands are left loose where they are likely to "short out" the other terminal or touch ground. If they are solid core they make sure they are nice and snug into the binding post hole and tighten down (finger pressure plus a little extra). Enjoy! Regards, Richard

If you like the sound of your new cables you may want to consider leaving them as is with the bare wire connection. I added crimp on Kimber Bananna's to my Kimber 4VS cables and found that I preferred the sound of the bare wire connection. It was a subtle difference, but clearer sounding especialy at very low and very high volumes. Following this I tried tinning the bare ends with silver solder. I still prefer the bare wire sound. The only drawback to this connection is that logicaly the ends should be cleaned periodicaly. I have read about contact cleaners on this sight but could not locate the threads this morning. With my cable and in my system bare wire is the best sounding connection. Some connectors may improve the sound of some systems only because they add, change or take away information from the signal path (like a tone control). And now that I think about it "some" cables may have been designed to work with this signal altering type of connector. How about this? When in doubt, try everything.

Dekay, it makes sense to me that it would actually work best w/o a "connector" i.e. spade or bananna, but I just wanted to make sure there wasn't something I was missing. In years past, equipment didn't require these connectors, you just pushed down the lever and inserted the wire. I have tried using bananna's with spades in the past, to make connecting the equipment easier to connect, it clearly degraded the sound.

Does anyone know of a good contact cleaner maintenance product for bare wire connections?

Brian, you don't need connectors. You can use bare wire with no problems. I don't use any connectors on my amp end, OR my speaker end(with my current cables). There are two issues here. If the connectors are better conductors than the wire itself(silver connectors w/copper wire) you would get a better "ohmic" contact(electrical speak for lower contact resistance). However, most of us use a connector of higher resistivity(gold plated - usually brass). The contact resistance is higher in these circumstances. The other thing is that even if the resistivity IS lower, many feel that there is a degradation in sound wherever one material transitions to another. So a gold plated brass connector would lose on both counts.

The best contact cleaners I have run into are the DeoxIT and PreservIT, formally called Cramolin Red and Blue, products from Caig Laboratories (www.caig.com). I use their R5 DeoxIT spray. It works great for contacts, pots and switches.

Thanks for the website Mstorkamp. Cramolin is the one that I remembered/forgot.

Probably depends on your wires!!!! Monster cables (e.i. multiple strands of unshielded wire) will probably sound the same with or withou good connectors. If you are talking about GOOD speaker wire ( multiple strands of INSULATED wire) things may be different. How are the Bananas connected? Are they el cheapo bananas that screw down or what????? Personally I hate bare wire connections. Not only for sonic differences but also for conveinence! You probably could "audition" these cables bare and get a good idea of their performance. By the way...What kind of cables are you working with????? Later! Steve

Just to put closure on this, I did test the wire already and other than being a pain to get hooked up, it worked fine for my test. Steve, some of your questions are answered if you would read all of the original message. The wire I was trying was Linn K400.