Old Mac Amps Banana to Spade Adapter Plug

[SaturationPt]

The potential for shorts and plugs slipping out accidentally I presume.

I do have some nice locking banana plugs, which work well and don’t come loose but it is true that there are a lot of mediocre banana plugs out there.

 

[SaturationPt]

My solution:

 

[lbcgav]

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but Vampire makes some spade connectors that fit properly.

http://www.soniccraft.com/product_info.php/sonic-craft-bar-spade-p-1516

I used them to make these:

 

[miketuason]

They are on Amazon - part #717351273563

Thank you!

 

[N8Nagel]

Banana plugs no good with tubes?

I think what he's saying is that he doesn't think the risk of the connection coming loose is worth it. With most SS amps, losing a speaker wire is a non-event, unless it actually shorts - with a tube amp you could possibly fry an OPT with simply an open. I personally don't go so far as to use rings, but I do use soldered on spades for receivers/amps with screw terminals. 5-ways or spring clips I just use bare wire with a dot of solder at the ends.

 

[isotopesope]

I just use bare wire ends on my MC-752 because I’m a cave man and DGAF.

 

[geddy402]

I think what he's saying is that he doesn't think the risk of the connection coming loose is worth it. With most SS amps, losing a speaker wire is a non-event, unless it actually shorts - with a tube amp you could possibly fry an OPT with simply an open. I personally don't go so far as to use rings, but I do use soldered on spades for receivers/amps with screw terminals. 5-ways or spring clips I just use bare wire with a dot of solder at the ends.

Ahhh, ok. Makes sense, thanks!

 

[damacman]

Yeah, it probably does - that's the impedance selector. And your eyes must be deceiving you - it's not corroded. The point I was trying to make was that the whole arrangement was impractical. I was trying to convert the Fisher's terminal jacks to work with the banana jacks on my Belden house speaker wiring that runs in the walls. It was a kludgy setup as I point out - I removed all of it and soldered the proper size terminal jacks on the Belden speaker cable.

Look closely at the wire strands as they enter the spade. Cooper oxidizes when exposed to oxygen and turns black - as the photo shows. So the termination itself has a small gauge oxidized copper wire within it. The lug appears to be OK as it's plated and has aged more gracefully.

So, using 12awg speaker wire into gold plated bananas, and gold plated spade to banana adapters to a 60yo #6 scew terminal which connects to the OPT via that 22awg lead is the crux of the biscuit.

 

[frodaddi]

I use bare wire ends, 14 ga so nothing excessively huge. But even so the stock terminal strip screws on my MC2125 are a PITA to connect to.

So I use some of those gold banana plug adapter things. But I don’t love them because one, the screw in part does not go all the way through so the bare wire ends can’t pass all the way through. And two, honestly they seem like kind of cheap junk.

I bought some spade to binding post things made by CESS off Amazon but the spades are too big. I really wish someone would make something decent quality that has the proper size spade connectors.

I know I could make my own but just never get around to it.

 

[frodaddi]

Update: tried another set of adapters by CESS and these ones ("small spade") fit!

https://www.amazon.com/CESS-031S-Spade-Binding-Banana-Female/dp/B08Z85KBLH

They are not quite perfect, mainly because the binding post connectors do not have a hole through the post for bare wire. So if you use them for bare wire, like I will, you have to wrap the stripped wire end around the post and tighten it down. Still easier than the screw terminal I think.

These ones are too big, even with "small spade"

https://www.amazon.com/CESS-125-Spades-Binding-Speaker-Terminal/dp/B08K4D912W

 

[MACKIE1975]

Suitable.

 

[nerdorama]

If you must have bananas, Pomona makes some nice adapters, 5699 series I think, and you can still use forks with them if you like. Problem is adjacent taps are very close together for some banana plugs.