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MF A3 speaker connectors: What were they thinking?

I'm getting a little frustrated with my Musical Fidelity A3 power amp. The speaker connectors seem to be designed for no known cable termination. What are other people doing with these connectors?

The connector shafts are threaded, about 1/2" in diameter. There is a large diameter cap nut which screws down on the cable termination. The threaded shaft has a large vertical hole in it, about 1/4", which is gradually covered by the nut as the nut is screwed down.

It seems like these connectors were designed for gargantuan spades like I've never seen or else for ... gasp ... bare wire!

I've tried putting one tang of a normal spade connector in the hole and tightening. This seems to provide a less than ideal connection and has to put weird stresses on the tang.

I've also tried putting a banana plug in the hole and tightening. Banana plugs are inherently springy and I feel bad tightening down on one. Also, it has to be a long banana plug so the the large cap nut tightens on the plug shaft and not on the larger base of the banana plug. Also, the vertical hole means that the banana must be pointing straight down so that the wire exits vertically up and the weight of the wire hangs awkwardly on the terminator.

This is a popular amp. Any ideas? What am I missing?
pmi_guy
7 responses Add your response
pmi_guy OP
72 posts
 
Great tip! The locking bananas fit perfectly. This must be a well kept secret. Long live A'gon.

After looking at my speakers, I found that the locking bananas fit there also. There's a big improvement in the sound now with the connectors done right. I guess those Brit's know what they're doing after all.

Thanks, Bob55 and everyone else.
snaftiolan9744
1 posts
 
As Bob says, banannas into the end work fine. I use CT 1 cables, and have what seems to be a very good connection.
socrates
247 posts
 
Right! Good call, bob55. I wasn't thinking that one may try to put the banana through the speaker wire hole and not the proper hole in the back of the binding post, but reading the post closer this may be the problem!
bob55's avatar
bob55
14 posts
 
They will accept bananas at the end of connector, you must first remove the little plastic caps covering the holes. I use Monster Cable X-terminator locking banana connectors with spades. I have found that the older style X-terminators that you tighten with a small screwdriver to give a much tighter connection than the newest type that use a knob.
socrates
247 posts
 
Just putting one spade through the hole is a very poor connection, very very poor actually as the hole is not flush and only a hairs breadth of contact is made. This will cause brightness and poor bass. You can buy locking banana plugs which are probably the best route, but nothing wrong with bare wire either so long as you use contact enhancer and/or trim a wee bit off from time to time. You could also change to typical WBT binding posts for a small fee and a little effort if so inclined, or even hard wire you speaker wire directly to the circuit board, which would be the ideal sonically.
tracer
102 posts
 
You are not missing anything-that is exactly the situation.Like you,I used the hole to put one half of the spade thru.Ironically the new 3.2Integrated is not that way.My spades fit it just fine on it.
alan
sc53
718 posts
 
I don't think you are missing anything; this seems to be a popular Brit way of doing speaker terminals! A little Cambridge Audio integrated I used to own has the same damn arrangement. I had to cut off the beautifully made spades from my speaker cables and use the bare wire, stuffed down the hole. And if you have very thick bare wire, it will not fit! Little isolated tendrils of wire bristling all over the screw-down cap! It's hideous! I will be interested to see what others have to say, maybe there's a theory here that I too am missing.
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