tl;dr: cheap brass spades sound dull

[zssmith]

Just thought I would relay my experience here. I'm not such a big fan of banana plugs, and some of my gear doesn't accept them, and bare wire is fiddly, so I figure spade terminals are the best option. I thought I would be clever by using crimp spade terminals from a hardware store, figuring they would get the job done. Right away, I was impressed with the solidity and depth of the signal, an improvement from my admittedly shoddy soldered tips before. So, that's a win. After a few days, I can't shake the feeling that the sound is a bit dull and lacking some detail. I chop off the terminals, go back to bare wire, and a bit of clarity and prickliness of the signal is back. Better transients, I guess. I guess these cheap terminals are made of brass or something, and while I do think the solidity was real, they kill a bit of detail.

I like the process and concept of crimping vs soldering, so I'll probably find some higher quality crimp spades with actual copper at some point. I know I can get spades with screws, but I just like the idea of a well crimped connection.