Does the quality of the spades matter

Aren't most speaker posts gold plated? If so, aren't we all running into a dissimilar metal mating regardless of what we do?

I know that many prefer bare wire and that may sound good for a while, but it is very difficult to keep clean. I thought that one of the primary purposes behind spades (etc) is to provide an easier surface to maintain since the spade connection to the wire should be airtight. Given that, the optimum material may depend on your habits. Gold is easiest to maintain. Both silver and copper require constant maintenance -- if you don't think you will clean the terminals monthly or quarterly, then silver and copper will become increasingly less articulate over time.

To aummarize, all conductors sound a bit different. If you keep the terminals clean, go with copper, gold or silver depending on your taste. If you don't keep them clean, go with gold. BTW, the impact of gold may be less than supposed since you are matching to gold anyway via the terminals.

Ozfly makes excellent sense to my mind. I'd follow his advice. Cheers,

OZ - yes and no.

Copper over time will oxidize and cupric oxides can tend to be semiconductive, thereby forming semiconductive films on areas that have been exposed.

Silver oxides (tarnish) are conductive and therefore do not exhibit the same potential for affecting the signal that the cupric oxides might pose.

Having said that, any good binding-post interfacing with a spade will render the junction gas-tight, therefore no distinct oxidation will occur. There may be other potential problems, such as metals migrating (i.e. a pure copper spade on a gold plated binding post is a place to watch for migration or "leeching").

Well, of course copper spades will have to be periodically cleaned and the connections retightened, that goes without saying and I doubt that a really gas tight junction can be made down to a molecular level and yes, metal migration is indeed a problem. Bad connections are audible. I can clearly hear improvement, especially in the highs, whenever the spirit comes over me and I clean them all. When sibilants become sssibilants, that is genereally the signal for me to gnash my teeth and rend my cloths first and then get going.

Heymable, thanks for the post and welcome to the world of Audiogon forums. I hope you will become a regular poster -- I didn't know silver tarnish was conductive. That's why we have these "discussions" here -- so we can all learn. I'm with Detlof that connections don't tend to stay air tight over time and an occassional cleaning is required, but I get your point and appreciate the response. All else equal (i.e., personal preferences to copper vs. silver), a silver spade might be the better choice.

I don't mean to put you on the spot, but could you explain a bit more about metal migration? What exactly happens? Do copper and silver behave the same way with gold. If the leeching occurs between the speaker binding post gold plating and the speaker binding post base metal, do you think the additional leeching of the speaker binding post gold plating to the spade might also affect conductivity? Thanks.