Bananas are more convenient especially if you need to schuffle between speakers or speaker wires. Bananas can perform almost like spades if you clean them often. If you don't need to unplug your speaker wire every time I suggest no termination and putting some silver non-lead solder onto the bare wires instead.
Wheather this is audiable or not it depends on how critical your listening is. You might miss small details(sometimes only if you know that they shlould take place on that particular recording) such as quiet sighings, steps far away from a recording microphone... |
Spades provide more contact area, thus a better electrical connection. However, bananas are easier to connect and disconnect. As far as sound goes, spades are better in my experience. As Marakanetz states above, no termination is probably the best as long as you "tin" the leads with some high quality quadutectic silver-base solder such as that sold by George Cardas. |
With WBT I have found NO audible difference. |
They both deliver about the same - sometimes bananas tend to fall out of the connection a bit easier than spades do from being tightened onto the binding posts. |
They both deliver about the same - sometimes bananas tend to fall out of the connection a bit easier than spades do from being tightened onto the binding posts. |
I seriously doubt that I could hear a difference between the two-- even if it were possible to A/B this. But I use and prefer spades. Cheers. Craig |
I did my best once to A/B spades vs bananas.Not the best scientific 'study' by a long shot.
No difference according to my 'findings'.I gave up after I began to feel kinda silly about the whole thing.
Im using MIT T-2 biwires W/bananas all the way around. |
I agree with the above posts that there is no difference between the two so long as both provide a "snug" connection.
Also, no connector/bare wire is the best. However, be careful if you are using solid core cable, not to crush the cable in the binding post. And a single point of contact is desirable, especially on the hot.
Of course silver cable needs no tinning. With copper, sometimes yes and sometimes no. Depending on the composition (solid core don't tin) and your willingness to clean the wire you may not have to tin the wire which is better; there is no heat or change in composition to affect the character of the cable. Furthermore if you have to, I'm not so sure about using solder with silver in it (lead is worse) to tin the wire as the silver content may separate and/or color the sound of copper cables.
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There isn't going to be any difference if you use quality stuff like WBT. Just be careful, because while almost any spade will make a good connection if it's crimped and tightened properly, I've seen banana plugs that were pretty cheesy and wouldn't trust them as far as I can throw them. |
David-the reason it wasn't scientific was the fact you kept taking off cloths to get an "unvarnished sound", and you felt silly because you woke up with a hang over and wearing your girlfriends underwear!!(and you weren't even drinking!) :) sorry I felt obligated to tell them all the truth. FWIW I use spades for piece of mind, I heard a bunch of manufacturer's making fun of people who use banana's, they even had some sort of anti-banana "song" so to speak and all knew the words and were singing it, though I think they may have been drinking :) I find that what the people say who make the gear tends to give the best results, as with most things, not exclusive to audio.
Tim |
So if bananas tend to fall out how could this be called a good mechanical connection?The cable and the connector should all be one continuium and if possible the internal wiring of the speaker and the amp should be the same so as to have the same signature! |
It doesn't need to be a good mechanical connection, it needs to be a good ELECTRICAL connection; there's a difference. You're flowing electrons, not water (although there were some idiotic water-filled cables on the market a few years back, maybe they need to be spade-terminated!). A large percentage of removable electrical connections are made with spring pressure, not screws. And the big advantage of spring-pressure contacts (including WBT bananas and the Neutrik Speakon connectors) is that they maintain consistent high contact pressure over time, and don't loosen due to thermal cycling, which is exactly what's needed for a good, reliable electrical connection. It's better than a thumb-tightened spade, and not any better or worse than a wrench-tightened spade, just different. |
My bananas dont 'fall out' they are nice and snug.Im done with spades.Too much trouble. |
If the connection is vibrating it has to be generating spurious noise and resonance. Look at some of the new ideas from Sonoran Audio.They now use a micro bearing insulator around the final dilectric of their new series of power cords, innerconnects, and speaker cables.I recently upgraded from their previous best to the new Plateau Series.The only difference is the micro-bearing insulator.WOW, much quieter more dynamic and improved separation .The first cable I swapped out was the co-axial digital.This new Plateau Series Cable lowered the noise floor and brought the soundstage to life. Only thing I can figure is that with the addition of the micro-bearing shield, noise is reduced to new lower levels, allowing more of music to be reproduced. |
