Speaker Cable Termination Opinions - Bananas or Spades


I'm ordering a set of speaker cables and need to decide on the speaker end terminations. 

There are only two choices so how difficult can it be.  

My concern stems from the fact that I reverse the speaker cable polarity regularly to align with CD recordings.  I've found some CDs are presented/recorded out of phase so I swap the phase at the speakers to align with the CD.  

Depending on the CDs I'm listening to at the time I might change them every other day or every couple of weeks.  But they get changed regularly.  

Bananas are the easiest to work with in this circumstance but the style of the banana that is available is the zig zag split sleeve.  My concern is that with repeated insertions I will wear away the coating on the hole in the binding post which in time might change the sonic influence.  For that reason I'm leaning towards having the terminations prepared with spades which will not introduce the abrasion level that the banana could possibly create.  

My preference is to not deteriorate the condition of the binding posts but it sure would be convenient having banana plugs.  

Are my concerns about the banana plugs unfounded?

My other solutions, and believe me, I think about them, are to swap the phase at the amp end where I plan to configure the cables with spades or to purchase a BAT preamplifier which has a phase button.  


pinball101

Showing 2 responses by pinball101

@fuzztone - I’m not a fan of bare wire.  
@jjss49 - the amp is a Plinius SA -103 and speakers are either Dali Helicon 800 or TAD ME1.  So the binding posts are durable.  That’s the concern - I want to keep them that way.  
Two more pieces of information. 

The cables will be set for biwire at the speaker end. 

There is a small challenge with swapping the amp end on the speaker cables in that the amp is suspended under the floor below the speakers due to restrictions in my room layout and is less convenient.