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Securing spade connectors

I’ve just picked up a pair of my favorite speaker cables, Transparent Super, on the used market for a great price. Unlike my old pair, these have spade connectors. 

So it took me maybe 30 minutes to get these cables connected, the actual speaker cables and the network boxes etc are so heavy that it’s extremely difficult to prevent the spade from slipping out of the post. So I’d screw down a speaker side and then the amp end would slide out. 

And thanks to the design of the Transparent cables, the 2 ends are harder to work with because the positive and negative ends are just about 5” long where they split from the main cable, so they are extremely difficult to position and work with. And my speakers have spade jumpers so I’m double stacking the spades on the speaker side which makes it twice as hard to screw down.

I know I can probably send these back to Transparent to get re-terminated but there must be a way to make the spade connectors work… is there a better way to connect these big bastards - do people actually use wrenches to torque down the binding connector posts or is there some kind of trick to make it easier? 

jsqt

Showing 2 responses by retiredaudioguy

retiredaudioguy
97 posts
 

Can't go bare wire with RSC cable unless the factory did it. 

"The TARA Labs RSC Master Gen 2 cable features a unique structure with multiple small, rectangular, individually insulated Consonant Alloy (a proprietary blend) solid-core conductors helically wound around a central air tube or tube".

I think cutting the cable would indeed be terminal!

 

retiredaudioguy
97 posts
 

Coincidence - I was about to post about issues connecting spades to Elekit binding posts, the combination of 81 year old, arthritic fingers and slippery plastic circular knobs does not work well with stiff heavy cables.

In the dark ages (pre 2014) binding posts had exposed brass nuts that could be tightened with a wrench.  The EU mandated insulation in 2014 - EN 60065:2014.  It seems rather ridiculous to mandate the insulation of terminals on a 3.5 watt amp!

Voltages less than 50 are not dangerous, though 20 volts can be felt with damp fingers.  50 volts into 8 ohms is 50x50/8 = 312.5 watts.  The 2A3s would have melted (evaporated!) long before that!  Being super cautious the regulation might make sense for amplifiers of 100 watts or greater.

I hate to write this but what about the exposed brass connectors on speakers, are they next?  If the amp terminals are dangerous what about the other end of the cables?

To hold the spades into the binding posts I have to use pliers.  Why not have the plastic "nut" hexagonal rather than limply knurled?  Kimber's Postmaster spades do click into place, also my Pass Labs amplifier's speaker terminals have greater leverage, there is a a 1" or so handle.

I am considering building my own Furutech cables with Postmaster spades.

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