Why terminate speaker wire?

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

Makes no difference.

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.

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

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