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Crimping bare speaker cable connections

I have DIY cables in my system. I prefer the bare wire connections vs. spade connections but I don't like the inconvenience of periodic cleaning of corrosion from the wire. I see that there are WBT crimp sleeves availble from www.partsexpress.com. These are to be used as part of their terminal installation. I'm wondering if I crimped one of these sleeves on my bare wire end and placed it through my speaker's binding post, would I solve the periodic corrosion problem? It seems to me it would, but I need to know from those wiser than I. Would it deter the quality of the signal?
mijknarf

Showing 3 responses by lugnut

lugnut
1,190 posts
 
Solder the bare wire.
lugnut
1,190 posts
 
Eldartford makes a good point about the non-corrosion paste but I don't have a clue about its sonic characteristics. It works well on car battery connections too.

Mijknarf, I've use the Radio Shack silver solder. Every report I've read is very positive about it. I used it to solder bannana plugs to my speaker cables. I'm happy with it. Radio Shack also sells a butane soldering iron for very little money. They have various tips for other purposes too. Everyone should own one.
lugnut
1,190 posts
 
Mijknarf,

I've used the silver solder and the butane iron a bunch and not just with audio. The butane iron/torch is just too cool. I honestly don't know how I would have done my hotrod wiring without it. I've never had the need to solder bare wire as described in the thread head so I can't speak with any personal knowledge about that issue. One hint to anyone doing this to bare wire is once the solder is one the wire and you have removed the heat source quickly flick the wire and all the excess solder will splatter on the ground. You will then have a "tinned" bare wire that is dimensionally very similar to what you started with. I hope you understand what I've described, and yes, it would be a good idea to flick the solder in the garage. It just sweeps up.
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