You tin the ends to keep from oxidation and corrosion, oxidized copper doesn't conduct so well. If you use bare wire which is best you need to clean or re-strip so connections not oxidized on a fairly regular basis unless tinned or you use connectors like banana.
speaker banana plugs
Hello, I own vintage gear. Marantz, Klipsch, Technics and a modern Rotel cd player. I find that with my budget these days the stuff they sell at BestBuy is horrible. Anyway my question is this. I run some fairly decent Monster speaker cable,''remember the part about my budget'' with gold banana plugs into the back of my Klipsch speakers. It seems to me that if I were to scrap the banana plugs and trim off a 1/4 inch of insulation on the cables and insert the exposed end through the binding post holes then gently tighten down the red and black screws it would serve as a more direct connection. Am I wrong? I'm going to try it. Aren't you losing signal with banana plugs ? opinions please.