Looking for pure copper or Cu/Au bananas

I like using pure unplated copper spades.  The Pangea Audio Xtreme Spades are made from Tellurium Copper (C14500?) so conductivity should be about 90-93% IACS (International Annealed Copper Standard), which is as good as it gets for a copper alloy.  I doubt you would ever hear a difference between those and pure copper.

The conductivity differential becomes more pronounced with materials like C36000 Brass, C54400 Phosphor Bronze, C17500 Beryllium Copper, which have low conductivities in the range of about 19% to 40% IACS.  My old Classe' Twenty Five amplifier had brass binding posts.  Most banana plugs are made from a copper alloy, which is why the KLE bananas that are made from silver plated pure copper are so well respected.

I have struggled over the years to find just the right heat shrink for particular projects.  I do like the 3M heat shrink for most things and it does come either with/without adhesive.  However, sometimes I have looked for thicker heat shrink for certain projects such as the ends of power cables, or even speaker cable connectors that will get a lot of handling over time.  I have sometimes found what I wanted at Partsconnexion but you might also look at what is available at this place.

Silver plated copper

@erik_squires 

@mitch2 Only 1 in stock, need 2.

That is strange Eric - I loaded 2 and then 4 sets into a cart and they seemed to be in stock.  However, the AECO bananas you chose look pretty good too.  Tellurium Copper adds durability over pure copper and is typically listed between 90-95 percent IACS, which is much better than the other copper alloys sometimes used, which are Phosphor Bronze at about 48 percent IACS and Beryllium copper at about 30-38 percent IACS. 

I was fortunate to purchase a bunch of the set screw style Furez copper spades and copper bananas (like these) before the pandemic.  I don't know why Furez seem to have stopped production of those because they were/are pretty nice.  The larger sized bananas and spades they formerly offered were also useful because they accommodated the larger 7awg cables I have made.  I also like the rubber inserts inside the bananas that seem to add stability and damping, and resist deformation.

I also agree on the Sonic Craft heat shrink.

I like Furutech XLR connectors, both chassis and plugs. I would also not hesitate to use Vampire chassis connectors. I have made many cables using the expensive Furutech 601/602 connectors but more recently I have been just as happy with cables I have made using Vampire and/or DH Labs (which appear to be Vampire) XLR connectors. The money I spent on the 601/602 connectors was probably overkill. Vampire’s upscale Xhadow connectors should also be very good, if you want to spend more money. Do not use Cardas chassis connectors (they break IME).  Neutrik of course is an industry standard and can be found on moderately to expensively priced cables and/or equipment.

@auxinput 

I noticed the pins on the Cardas male chassis mount XLR becoming loose when I changed cables and it progressively got worse to the point where it no longer made the connection.  The manufacturer of my amps/preamp indicated other customers had similar issues with that same part.  I did the replacement work myself and used a  Furutech chassis mount XLR, which has performed flawlessly.