Do you terminate your speaker wire? Best practices?

Bassmantweed

Bassmantweed

Super Member
i have a set of middle of the road speaker wire (audioquest) they have the 6 inner solid copper strands to allow for biwiring or biamping i suppose. My question is I bought some banana plugs and soldered them onto the wire then i started thinking the solder i used is mostly tin and other less conductive metals. Am i limiting my potential by using these gold plated plugs and solder?

Are there any best practices - is this a cse where keeping it simple may be best - and go with bare copper wires?
 
Register to hide this ad
I think that this would depend on what kind of gear you have... speakers, power amp and pre or integrated or a reciever????
 
Tinning for better electrical conductivity or to keep the strands attached to one another? Or both?
 
I've got a pair of cables that I've soldered and a pair that use a set screw. Both are 'nanners. They are on different systems and different gauges so I haven't A/B'd them but from casual listening I really can't tell if there's any degredation in sound due to the type of connection.
 
When soldering to gold connectors you should pre-tin the gold with solder then wick the solder off. This will leave a thin layer of solder on the gold surfaces. After pre-tining, solder tinned wires to connectors.
 
i think the question is wil there be a sonic bennifit one way or another. that would depend on several things in very highly resolved systems you mat notice the diff. in termanations but it would be a very minor diff. if any
 
johnnm said:
Tinning for better electrical conductivity or to keep the strands attached to one another? Or both?
Click to expand...
To keep the strands together.

It's a real stretch pretending that the conductivity of a film of solder is in any significant respect an issue here.... :yes:
 
Really? I am not being a wise guy here but I dont understand what components have to do with the best wire transfer?

My components are yamaha preamp (it is also powering my surrounds and Center) and I have a mcintosh mc352 powering the mains which are B&W P6's.

My question asked a better more direct way i guess would be does the tin solder take away any of the upside of having good quality copper?
 
"It's a real stretch pretending that the conductivity of a film of solder is in any significant respect an issue here"

Agreed; a properly soldered connection is about as good as it gets. What I was suggesting is soldering the tinned wires to the pre-tinned banana plugs, this is a connection that will last.
 
stereocuuple said:
i think the question is wil there be a sonic bennifit one way or another. that would depend on several things in very highly resolved systems you mat notice the diff. in termanations but it would be a very minor diff. if any
Click to expand...

That's what i was thinking...... I have mine terminated but i was talking with the tech at the local shop and he said that if you dont have to he would not do it as it was better to have the bare wire?

you know what they say about opinions.........
 
Tinning also prevents corrosion of the copper conenction. The gold plating on the plugs is not for improved conductivity (gold is a good but not great conductor) but rather so that it wont corrode, rust, or tarnish, since the connection is exposed to air.
 
Banana plugs are weak point in your speaker hookup. Eliminate the terminals by bringing the input wires of your crossovers outside the box. Mount two inline cable splice blocks on the rear of the speaker and insert the crossover wires in one end and the speaker cables in the other. Tighten the screw down tight. These blocks will alow you to join the thin crossover wires directly to any heavy gauge speaker cable with a very solid connection. No solder. No corrosion. No plugs. Available at building supply electrical department. If you want a superior connection look at how they connect the wires supplying your house with electrical power. Forget about Radio Shack and Monster cable. Much more economical too.
 
I'm about to upgrade/change my whole speaker cable chain from new internal wiring in the amp, New binding posts (in place of factory clamps), new cable. I will be using a tinned end on the twisted strands of the cable. I happen to have a Lot of .850 coin silver so I'm going to heat up a bit in a casting laddle and dip my cable ends in it. The silver will nicely tin the wire holding it together while being much less prone to tranish then bare copper.
 
I'm not "pretending exposed copper does not patinate over time". It surely does. I open the conections and scrape down to fresh copper when it "patinates." When it's reconnected there's nothing to degrade the signal like solder connections and plugs or terminals. The less places for "patination" to develop the less signal loss you have. I don't know who invented the banana plug but they sure weren't an audiophile.
 
drail said:
I'm not "pretending exposed copper does not patinate over time". It surely does. I open the conections and scrape down to fresh copper when it "patinates." When it's reconnected there's nothing to degrade the signal like solder connections and plugs or terminals. The less places for "patination" to develop the less signal loss you have. I don't know who invented the banana plug but they sure weren't an audiophile.
Click to expand...

A banana plug thats gold plated with the copper being soldered to the end will not corrode or "patinate" . The soldered connection is fused together, and oxygen free if done right. The process of plugging the plug into the socket will scrape away any sort of "patination" between the two pieces. There will be an oxygen free connection at the contact points. Nevermind the fact that gold plated connections remain corrosion free for most intents and purposes.

What measured signal loss are you talking about when you call banana plug non audiophile?

Why do all the high end manufacturers bother to put gold plated binding posts on their gear? Why are all the boutique cables terminated with banana plugs?
 
Why did the recording industry switch from LPs to CDs? Why did the broadcast industry switch to digital? Why do people listen to IPODS and MP3s? Because they're "better"? Or maybe they're just selling people what they want because people don't expect or recognize quality anymore.
 
drail said:
Why did the recording industry switch from LPs to CDs? Why did the broadcast industry switch to digital? Why do people listen to IPODS and MP3s? Because they're "better"? Or maybe they're just selling people what they want because people don't expect or recognize quality anymore.
Click to expand...

Thanks for answering my question with questions.

We are not talking about consumers with the attention span of gnats that buy shiny plastic mini systems for their ipods. We are talking about best practices when connecting speakers.

You yourself were talking about audiophiles before this last response.....Audiophiles that will spend 20k on a system and keep tweaking it. Audiophiles that will spend hours getting their turntable just right. Audiophiles that take lots of time getting their speaker placement right.

Are saying audiophiles that use these banana plugs don't recognize quality and would rather have ease of use over that last bit of sound they were looking for?


So again, can you answer my original question, what measured evidence makes a bananna plug bad vs bare wire?
 
Tinning is and was the right way to do it, long before I ever heard of any other way to do it. Other than the method I use because I'm lazy, twist ends and attach.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom