Modification of speaker cables


I have a set of MIT's 750 biwire speaker cables. They are terminated with spades. I have just purchased a new amp that has binding posts that are larger than the spades will fit. Will there be any negatives to removing the spades and going with the bare wire? (other than resale value)
emily
You could see if you can get them re-terminated. The cost should not be too much. Are these gold spades I assume? I had this problem once with other brand and was able to carefully spread out (bend) the spade forks enough to fit around the wider binding post. Bare wires are hard to tell. It should work, but it probably increased the corrosion possibility of the copper ends. I am sure someone has tied this and hopefully will post. There was a post recently of someone who took apart the terminator boxes.
Bare wire is better. The transition from one material to another is always a problem because the music signal can become degraded. Spade and banana plugs are convenience items.
I just bought some over-sized MIT spades, stuffed the wire in, and topped it off with some WBT solder tonight. Cost, $20 for two pairs of spades, and 10 minutes of soldering.
When soldering, make sure U remove previous solder (or cut off) and your connection is shining (= not "cold" soldering). As Jeffloistarca, created the connection without the solder and secure it by soldering. Bare wire WILL oxydize but, as Onhwy61 notes, you'd eliminate an extra material from that conductor chain (not to mention the soldering, i.e. TWO materials?) so, better.
Good luck!
Emily, mit reconfigured some speaker wire for me, went from biwire to single for thiels, cost was $100, I'm guessing retermination is cheaper. I've used bare wire and IMO you can't really tighten down the connections enough without almost breaking the wire and it is also cleaner and safer to have terminations, then you have to worry about oxidation every few months.
I have always been a bare wire advocate, but am getting tired of re-dressing the ends of my cables when they become damaged from being taken on and off when auditioning other wire and during other general experimentation (which includes cleaning the connections every 6-8 weeks or so). I am actually considering quality (though low mass) bananas if I go with Mapleshade speaker cable and hope that I don't regret it. Bananas so that I can easily switch from a simple tube amp (with a volume pot) to a SS amp when we just want background music and when I am burning in other gear and want to leave the system on 7/24.