Sewell Silverback flex pin connectors

[telemike]

I found these work great for connecting to vintage receivers & amps with spring pin connectors. I already had cables with banana plugs. I can plug the banana plug into this connector and use my cables with vintage equipment without having to chop off the banana plug.

I removed the set screws and my banana plug fits in nice and tight.

https://sewelldirect.com/SilverbackSL-6-pack

A great new product is off the production line at Sewell Direct. The Silverback Flex is a self-crimping connection, for all inputs that are spring-loaded, or simply accept a wire only connection. The Silverback Flex marries the beautiful and sturdy design of the Silverback Banana plug, with the need for wire connection. We’ve developed a special non-conductive coating for our aluminum casing on the Silverback, which will inhibit the plugs from electrical conduction, ensuring the user a perfect connection, with no worries of shorting your speakers.

 

[mgosdin]

I've used their banana plugs with no issues, so these are tempting for the various speakers I have that don't take banana style plugs.

Mark Gosdin

 

[telemike]

Yes, they would also work with speakers that have spring clips

 

[Inscrutable]

I removed the set screws and my banana plug fits in nice and tight.

Cool ! so existing banana terminations fit well into the barrel? Been looking for something like that to be able to use some of my better cables.

Now if I can find a similar spade adapter ...

 

[telemike]

Yes! Banana's fit good in the barrel.

 

[TWTRTECH]

My only problem is that the all metal outer casing can cause an easy short and take out your output stage.

 

[telemike]

My only problem is that the all metal outer casing can cause an easy short and take out your output stage.

Nope. The casing is coated to prevent shorts

We’ve developed a special non-conductive coating for our aluminum casing on the Silverback, which will inhibit the plugs from electrical conduction, ensuring the user a perfect connection, with no worries of shorting your speakers.

 

[BillWojo]

They developed a special non conducting coating for aluminum? They developed anodizing? Marketing BS! For that reason alone I would never buy there products. I hate BS!

BillWojo

 

[telemike]

Well, there's always electrical tape. Regardless, the connectors work well with spring clips

 

[mgosdin]

I ordered in a set of these flex connectors from Amazon and put the non conduction coating to the test with a multimeter. If you touch the flat part of the casing or the knurling with a probe you get no conductivity to the center, however if you touch the edge of the knurling you do get conductivity. So, in a real world test the Sewell non conduction coating can fail. It's a good thing that out of an abundance of caution I had already covered my earlier Sewell banana plugs with electrical tape.

Mark Gosdin

 

[John Parkey]

Yes, does anyone know of a product that you can use with spade connectors? I have several pair of high quality cables that are terminated with spades, and I would like to use these cables with the vintage amps I have. Looking for a flex pin connector which can screw onto the spade. Thank you.

 

[reydelaplaya]

Old thread, but FWIW, I use these on my speaker cables I made. They are a little bit conductive, I've found. While I don't have any newer photos with the shrink wrap tubing, I ended up putting on a bit at the cable ends to prevent the outer casings from touching. In the pic below, it would be shrink covering the last 1/4 inch of the metal casing and maybe 3/4 inch overlapping onto the blue cable itself. That seems to have taken care of the problem completely. Still looks great, too.

Otherwise, they are very nicely constructed, and are great for finishing off speaker cables to fit into the spring clip style connections.

 

[reydelaplaya]

Yes, does anyone know of a product that you can use with spade connectors? I have several pair of high quality cables that are terminated with spades, and I would like to use these cables with the vintage amps I have. Looking for a flex pin connector which can screw onto the spade. Thank you.

That could be a tough find, John. Welcome to AK. Your best bet may be to just cut the spades off and use whichever connectors would suit best in your case.

 

[mgosdin]

@reydelaplaya I love the look of those cables, all business. I used shrink wrap on the last few Sewell connectors I've used and retrofitted it to the older ones in place of the electrical tape I'd used.

@John Parkey You might look for something similar to this connector from Cardas:

A little clunky, and you would want to be careful of shorts/ to insulate, but it should get the job done.

Mark Gosdin

 

[Poultrygeist]

The Monster Quick Lock also uses the same base for banana plugs and flex pins. But it doesn't have those infernal tiny set screws which are so easily lost.

https://www.amazon.com/Monster-QuickLock-MKII-Connectors-Terminations/dp/B000WXBY7I

 

[John Parkey]

Old thread, but FWIW, I use these on my speaker cables I made. They are a little bit conductive, I've found. While I don't have any newer photos with the shrink wrap tubing, I ended up putting on a bit at the cable ends to prevent the outer casings from touching. In the pic below, it would be shrink covering the last 1/4 inch of the metal casing and maybe 3/4 inch overlapping onto the blue cable itself. That seems to have taken care of the problem completely. Still looks great, too.

Otherwise, they are very nicely constructed, and are great for finishing off speaker cables to fit into the spring clip style connections.

Very nice looking cables. I may have to cut the spades off and use these kind of terminations. Did you find that these cables improved the sound in your system over regular 16 gauge wire? Thank you. --John

 

[reydelaplaya]

Very nice looking cables. I may have to cut the spades off and use these kind of terminations. Did you find that these cables improved the sound in your system over regular 16 gauge wire? Thank you. --John

Thank you. They were inspired by / based on the White Lightning Moonshine cables.

As for how they sound... They sound good, what I expected. Especially since this is what they were replacing:

Over a decade living beachfront in the Caribbean had taken its toll on my old monster cable. LOL Anything not corroded was bound to sound better.

 

[reydelaplaya]

@reydelaplaya I love the look of those cables, all business. I used shrink wrap on the last few Sewell connectors I've used and retrofitted it to the older ones in place of the electrical tape I'd used.

@John Parkey You might look for something similar to this connector from Cardas:

A little clunky, and you would want to be careful of shorts/ to insulate, but it should get the job done.

Mark Gosdin

Thank you. Here's a photo of the shrink wrapped connectors.

 

[jt01]

These looked like they might meet my needs, so I checked them out at the link in the first post. The one review on the sewelldirect site said the solder blob on the tip of the braided cable prevented them from fitting on the spring-loaded connectors of vintage receivers/amplifiers. The reviewer mentioned trying them on Yamaha, Sansui, and Sherwood equipment (no model numbers specified) with no luck. It doesn't sound like any of the previous posters had this problem - any comments?

 

[reydelaplaya]

These looked like they might meet my needs, so I checked them out at the link in the first post. The one review on the sewelldirect site said the solder blob on the tip of the braided cable prevented them from fitting on the spring-loaded connectors of vintage receivers/amplifiers. The reviewer mentioned trying them on Yamaha, Sansui, and Sherwood equipment (no model numbers specified) with no luck. It doesn't sound like any of the previous posters had this problem - any comments?

A couple out of the 24-pack I bought had the tips a little out of shape and too wide to fit. A little reshaping by squeezing with some needlenose pliers put all 24 in use without issue.