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Large Spades and Small Terminals.

A

acass

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
Hi, I have a Pair of Cardas Neutral Referance Speaker cables factory terminated with 9mm spades which I am trying to hook up to a 1963 tube amp and it looks very ugly at the moment. It entails 4 connection points, the 9mm spade to a solid metal banana connector into a female jack which is attached to a small spade by a short wire and the spade goes under the terminal on the amp. It is cumbersome, ugly and more than a bit iffy. Is there a device that will connect the 9mm spade to the amp in one shot?

Thanks for any help.

Alan
 
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With my vintage amplifiers, I prefer to use lighter weight speaker cables which are terminated directly into smaller spade connectors. The reason why, is I am concerned about the damage and stress caused by the weight and tension of large cables and adapters, etc. It seems to me similar to hanging a bag of rocks on a coat hook, and hoping it holds.

Not to mention the poor appearance. Also, such vintage amplifiers typically have a poor enough damping factor, that using a lighter speaker cable than you would with a Krell doesn't have much impact on performance.

Another option is to have your amplifier fitted with larger and more modern terminals.
 
I have some spade to female banana adapters I got cheap on amazon, but the spades were for much larger screws than old tube amps have. I chopped them and replaced them with smaller. Most amps run a #6 screw for output, the spades that came on those adapters were either 1/4" or #10.

if I didn't swap stuff around so much I'd probably just run spade terminals all the time but some of my amps don't take them. Speakers end up with bananas and I just adapt as needed.
 
Maybe I am missing something, but why not just use bare wire, like the amp was designed to use (if it indeed it was).
 
Or just buy some good quality cable with bare ends (one can put ends on the speaker side) instead of all those fiddly connections? Who said he had to cut the ends off of an expensive set of cables?
 
Bodyblue said:
Or just buy some good quality cable with bare ends (one can put ends on the speaker side) instead of all those fiddly connections? Who said he had to cut the ends off of an expensive set of cables?
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I guess your "maybe I'm missing something" threw me for a curve as an insinuation for the OP to simply transform the cables to a bare wire state... e.g. cut off the ends.

But, it's clear now you meant get different cables.
 
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Bare ends on old terminal strips is a risky move.

As stated above, #6 spade terminals will fit old Dynaco and fisher amps. Others too. You can get them for 10ga commonly. 8ga will require some seeking.
 
I'm just not a big fan of bare wire, especially if its fat wire. It doesn't stay under the screw neatly. Spade terminals keep the strands from sticking out and possibly shorting. Less of an issue with barrier strips but the row of screws with no dividers that lots of amps used is just asking for a short circuit.
 
Thanks for the screw size Gadget, I ordered some terminal adapters from Amazon but I think they will be too big. It's a Fisher X-202B and is tucked in to a tight space. Just moving it in and out worries me that the "clump" may short out. The ideal thing would be The square block that is spade to female bananas but again finding the right size is the hard bit.
 
I understand using good quality cable, but over the years on here I have seen an obsession with massive gauge cable..........a flea watt amp (or a lower power amp like the OPs) simply does not need 12g cable for a say, 10 foot run. (I have no idea what the OP is using, this is just a generic thought). A bit of overkill with modern materials is pretty the price of admission for the AK community (me included) but over over over overkill is simply that, overkill. There is no shame in using a slightly bigger gauge than the amp was designed for and is easy to use. And there is nothing risky is using bare wire IF, IF the gauge is appropriate for the terminals.


acass said:
Thanks for the screw size Gadget, I ordered some terminal adapters from Amazon but I think they will be too big. It's a Fisher X-202B and is tucked in to a tight space. Just moving it in and out worries me that the "clump" may short out. The ideal thing would be The square block that is spade to female bananas but again finding the right size is the hard bit.
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What gauge cable are you using and how long are the runs?
 
The Cardas cable was used because it was on hand. The Audioquest cable I found after a search is 5 x 20AWG per leg. The Cardas pair is 10ft and the Audioquest is 12ft, I could manage with 8ft but I'm not cutting good cable.
 
acass said:
As for buying new cable, what's the best between a Fisher X-202B and a Pair of Klipsch Cornwall II's?
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This is unfortunately a question that's impossible to answer in absolute terms, because since the introduction of Monster Cable in the late 1970s, speaker wire has been a very controversial topic.

If you were to ask me, what would I use for this application, rather than an absolute what is best, I would say first look at the length of the runs. If it's about 10 feet or so, then #18AWG lamp cord (1mm2 on the off chance you're in Europe). If much longer, then #16AWG (1.5mm2), but to be honest, #18 is just nicer to work with, so I wouldn't jump to #16 without really needing it. Make sure to buy cable with copper conductors, and not copper clad aluminum which has become prevalent as low cost speaker cable in recent years.

On the amplifier end, you could install crimp on fork connectors, or twist the strands together and tin the ends with solder, so that no stray strands can touch each other and form the tinned end into a hook to go around the screw terminals on the amplifier. On the speaker end, just strip half an inch and twist the wire together, and insert through the holes on the speakers 5 way binding posts.

It's not glamourous, but if you decide to give it a try and start having doubts, why not connect one speaker with lamp cord and the other with one of the existing speaker wires you already own, and see if you can hear a difference.

The reason I am so comfortable with thin and cheap wire in this scenario, comes down to the high sensitivity of the klipsch speakers, the low power of the amplifier, and the high output impedance of a tube amp. All of these conditions together make the system quite insensitive to lightweight speaker cables, and the lightweight cables will make your installation cleaner, put less stress on the amplifier connectors, and cost less. win win win as far as I am concerned.

I have some fairly expensive QED cables that I stopped using in favor of some 1mm2 cable I recovered from surplus power cords, simply because I didn't notice any difference in sound, and the thinner cable is much nicer to deal with.
 
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I am completely in agreement with @maxhifi although it is fiercely debated by others, especially those who have bought into the cable hype.

I have a couple of concerns regarding your use-case in post 11. If you feel that there is risk due to moving the amp and its being in a “tight space”, what you do NOT want is stiff cables that will put an excessive amount of force on your amp’s terminals. Further, putting a lever arm such as the block-style terminal-to-banana adapters on these screw terminals, then adding essentially a crowbar by plugging in banana plug, plus stiff cables? You will definitely be putting those terminals on the amplifier at risk.

My personal go-to for a system like you describe is 14AWG copper twin-lead, it will serve you well. A bit of overkill if you’re going less than 10’, but still easy to manage and terminate. Buy and crimp some nice fork lugs on the end, gold plated if that’s what you prefer, be sure that your terminals are clean as tin-gold isn’t the best combination and built-up oxidation will make for a less than optimum connection. Less is more, make as few connections and metal transitions as possible (such as mechanical connection first, then solder if you so desire but don’t expect the solder to carry the signal).
 
SaturationPt said:
putting a lever arm such as the block-style terminal-to-banana adapters
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Those horrible things? I have certainly seen broken and damaged phenolic terminal strips caused by these devices. (generic image from amazon attached)

If someone is absolutely committed to using high end speaker cables, then it makes sense to just have appropriate binding posts installed on the amplifier instead of attempting to use adapters. I don't like this route, because it's both unnecessary work, and a modification which may affect the value and cosmetics of vintage gear, but it would at least result in a secure and stable connecton.
 

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Will these work?
From Blue Jeans Cable.

Forks Versus Spades: Binding Posts or Terminal Strips?​

The welded spade lugs depicted above are made to fit conventional binding-post terminals such as are typically found on speakers. The opening of the spade lug is large and will fit these posts. If, however, you need connectors to fit terminal strips, such as are found on some amplifiers, these spades are much too large. For these applications we offer small soldered-on fork terminals which are intended to fit these terminal strips -- we have these in #6 (.138 inch, 3.5 mm), #8 (.164 inch, 4.17 mm) or #10 (.19 inch, 4.83 mm) size; all of these measurements are of the INSIDE of the fork; the external width ranges from 8.2 to 8.7 mm, which will fit most terminal strips.
 
yea i'm not a fan of the fork things either. At one point I had some Pomona #6 to banana screw-in adapters but stopped using them when I broke the terminal strip on my Pilot 260. The wired adapters don't have the leverage problems that the other setups have.

maxhifi said:
Those horrible things? I have certainly seen broken and damaged phenolic terminal strips caused by these devices. (generic image from amazon attached)
Click to expand...
 
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