Why terminate speaker wire?

Where you live makes a difference. Try bare on a coastal island.(nudist beach?) Salt wrecks havoc on copper and silver. 

I know exactly where you are coming from. Yeah bare wire is the best - but for. how long? I too have settled on bananas as the best compromise, because there’s usually a little bit of spring tension in interface that you don’t get with normal spades.

I know cardas? I think make some spades with a sandwich construction with an elastiomer middle layer which provides some spring tension over the long term.

In my case, it is not so much about oxidation with bare wire connection to speaker binding posts. It’s the tightness of the connection that isn’t good in comparison to banana plugs. Over time, the connection with bare wires will become loose, resulting in a poor sound quality.

I recall my system sounding considerably off at one point of time. I checked all cabling and the rack to see if the power cords are touching the interconnects and speaker cables. I later found the culprit - the connection at the speaker terminals was loose as I could turn the nut to complete one full circle before it’s tight again. Yes, a full 360 degrees circle which is crazy. After the nuts were tightened at all binding posts, it’s all glory again.

After that incident, all my speaker cables come terminated with spades or bananas. Banana plugs are my favourite. The connection with terminated speaker cables will not become loose with time. It’s tight and secure. It is also much easier and convenient to use terminated wires than bare wires, and they look better too. Lastly, all good speaker cables come factory terminated.

"Most surface area to surface area connection"

My preference is the opposite of this.

Reduce metal mass in the signal path and when using standard (large metal mass) connectors achieve small/good contact of the signal wire.

If using single solid core wire for speaker cables with standard large metal mass screw down connectors then a single flat loop of the wire is better than coiling it around numerous times.

I've also modified/cut down already low metal mass RCA male connectors by removing 3 "V" shaped sections from the ring that clamps onto the female RCA connector resulting in even less metal mass and a reduced (3 prong) contact area.

DeKay

Is that why they're called banana plugs?

Most people, though not all, prefer to make love with their clothes off for the best connection. Others think it makes no difference.

According to Benchmark, their testing showed speakon was the best followed by locking banana. I wish all cables were speakon from a use standpoint. My cables are for too heavy for spades.  

FTR:  Silver oxidizes so most silver looking copper wire is actually tinned.

@danager 

Compared to bare wiring I think a well made terminated connection offers the most consistent and largest surface area.  Consider a crimped on / cold welded spade.  You have 100% of the wire coming into contact with the spade, and then the very large surface area of the spade makes the contact with the speaker terminal. 

Gas tight low mass = great connection as @tonywinga  above astutely understand. I good ratchet crimper is excellent or a Stakeon. Solder and heat shrink are your friends also. Cardas and wonder solder are my preference. I also am a fan of ring terminals for speaker connection. Finally a super beefy Cardas connector and amp and speaker make an excellent upgrade.

for those anguished about an extra connection but running speaker wires of > 6-8’ you are doing yourself a sonic injustice… but I guess that’s another topic…

I've tried both bare wire and many types of terminations over the years. My experience mirrors the varied responses in this thread, Downside of terminations could be dissimilar metals, but could be upside as well in that one could flavor to taste.

tonywinga argument makes sense of terminations.

Seems solid core vs. litz wire would make difference as well, bare solid core would make great contact, litz not so good. Bare litz core always gets discombobulated and spread all over the place when cinching down on terminals, hard to keep twisted.

Someone mentioned a gas tight seal.  That is exactly right but not just for corrosion resistance.  Electricity will not flow from one surface to the other unless they are in contact.  Gas tight means no gap between the mating surfaces.  And in order to achieve that the wire must be deformed.  Copper is a good choice because it is ductile.

The ideal mechanical joint is bare wire clamped tight enough to deform the copper strands.  The old hifi gear had nice big bolts to facilitate that.  The problem is reusing the wire, especially the expensive stuff.  Every time the wire is unclamped the ends need to be cut in order to reuse the wire and get a proper gas tight seal.  Even the old receivers with the screw terminals were enough to deform the copper strands of the speaker wire.  So yes, if you are installing electrical outlets in your house and you use the screw terminals, then you should see the copper wire deform when you tighten down the screws.  If not, get a bigger screwdriver.

A properly crimped joint will have less than 5 microOhms resistance.  Mechanical cycling of the joint either by temperature cycling or vibration can cause the joint to loosen and resistance to increase.  Don't worry, it takes hundreds of thousands to millions of cycles for that to happen on a good joint.  If the joint is conveying power it can start to heat up which accelerates the degradation of the joint and thus driving resistance higher which leads to more heating.  Bad news.  

Spade or bananas on speaker wires is a good compromise for very expensive cables.  If the terminations are done properly the degradation to the sound is perhaps zero but the speaker/amp terminals for spades should be stout enough to handle a wrench for tightening.  

Thanks everybody this is a great learning experience.

@erik_squires 

• Most surface area to surface area connection

What is the mechanism that would provide that?  The wire has to go inside the terminal or the wire has to go inside the connector that goes inside the terminal.  I guess the connector could have more internal surface area than the terminal and then a smoother surface at the terminal end but wouldn't tinning the ends accomplish the same thing and reduce the connections by half?

My 16GA, 2 cond, speaker wire is 99.9% pure copper.  I strip the ends and twist the strands.  Then insert into the speakers and AVR.   Do what you want with added connectors on the ends.

Yes, bare wire for me too.

High purity oxygen free if possible.

No more overly tight connectors please.

Tinned is ok too, much tidier.

Spades work well in cars, presumably Hi-Fi too.

I found it disappointingly inevitable when Harbeth finally caved in to market demand and began to offer super duper megabuck connectors on their anniversart models.

Oh well, at the risk of Harbeth feeding the very ’audio nirvosa’ they’ve been fighting for many years, at least there’s a chance that everyone should be satisfied now.

Great question, and I tend to agree that less is more and should be cheaper without the pricey connectors.  I would do silver-plated ends for the reasons stated above. 

sometimes we ask why expensive cables are expensive. i’m not talking about $30k cables here, but why it’s $1000 or $3000 instead of $50 or $100? part of it is the quality of the connectors, and the care taken to fasten them.

my speaker cables are likely the heaviest of any speaker cables, their name is Evolution Acoustics TRSC (triple run speaker cables), and they are close to 2 inches around of three runs of thick cables (the same cable used inside my speakers). so to bring all that wire together into a spade is not trivial. if it was bare wire there would be no way to connect it to the amplifier.

i’ve compared these cables to my previous cables, the $30k+ Transparent Audio Opus MM, and preferred mine to those. mine are not cheap, but don’t break the bank either, $6k (last time i checked) for an 8 foot set with spades.

i would agree that certain type of speaker wire can go ’naked’ onto a binding post, but depends on the wire.

we can argue all day about wire mattering to the performance of the system, but you do have to attach it to speakers and to amps.

If an engineer cannot design a better connection than wrapping a wire around a post, he must be an electrical engineer.  fire him and get a mechanical engineer to work that job. 

You have a point that adding connections can introduce degradation if not done right.  do it right.

Also, adding a huge chunk of mass into your circuit can be an issue.  Look at low mass connectors.  

Jerry

So now silver doesn't oxidize? And why would adding an extra connection point be better than just a solid wire? It's not connectors don't improve sound they are just convenient. On loudspeakers, I also try to not use binding posts those negatively affect sound to a larger degree than a wire termination. Keep in mind much of what you think is proper about audio is more about convenience and ease of production and profits it is not about sound quality. 

Makes a better connection.Spades are the best.

so it's an oxidation issue?

One of the reason for silver plating the copper wire is to stop the copper from oxidation. Second reason is for ease of soldering. I use the wire below 12 AWG M22759/11-12 PTFE wire (bare ends /12'' long.) It makes excellent speakers cables. IMO: Speaker wire termination adds more resistance to the cable. My rationale, is shorter speaker wire with less connections is a good thing.

Mike

• Convenience connecting
• Lack of oxidation
• Reduced chance of shorts (no rogue strands)
• Looks
• Most surface area to surface area connection

Depends on how complex the cable is made. Also how stiff or large it is and whether one can physically get the cable around the post or thru the hole and still get a nut seal. Having a neat termination is easier to deal with and less chance of stray windings shorting out. Nicely terminated cable, most likely, will have better resale value too.

+1 secretguy! As the French chef says "No diffawrance!"

If you use terminations, the less metal in them the better.

those Z banana thingies made out of thin gold plated sheet metal with a wiggly slit probably place the least metal between you and the signal out of anything I know - quite cheap too if you know where to look

Terminal ends are for convenience, they are pretty and they cost money.

Now, the reason I use them, to fine tune the sound. It's as simple as that.

Copper, Red copper, Copper with silver clad or pure silver, nothing else.

Y spades, bullet banana with a knife edge expanding clip or expanding saw tooth bullets. Teflon tape in leu of shrink tube.. 

BIG Nugget, teflon tape sounds better than shrink tube by a mile. THIN is the key..

Regards

There's people that prefer bare, and there's people that prefer terminated. Both sides claim the same improvements in SQ. In theory bare should perform better as spades or banana plugs are another link in the chain that could degrade the signal. The most commonly cited benefits of termination are protection from oxidation, and protection from damage.

Makes no difference.

I've used bare wire ends with 47 Labs OTA 26 gauge solid core copper (used a speaker cable) for almost 20 years now without any problems.

In the early stages I would strip/replentish the ends every year, or so, but as I noticed no oxidation when doing so I abandoned the procedure.

This was on the amp end as I generally soldered the cables directly to my various single driver speakers.

The few  times I tried soldered or screw type connectors the SQ went South.

However this would most likely be dependent on the cable/connectors used as well as the system itself.

My rational is that reducing large metal masses in the signal path is a good thing and with this thought in mind my 47 Labs RCA connectors contain zero metal aside from the copper cable used in the interconnects.

DeKay

No oxidation would not be an issue in my opinion because silver oxide is a very good conductor. I think your initial thoughts are on track.

I run bare wire at the speaker ends and amp ends, it sounds best that way.

Mike

so it's an oxidation issue?

Tinned wire cold welded to a low mass spade = gas tight.

You are correct sir!