spades vs. bananas

Connectors do sound different, and in the case of speaker cables, the connectors both on the cable and the amp and speaker are very very important. But there are good banana connectors and bad spades, and vice versa. I like the WBT bananas much better than their spades for example. A great buy, by the way, are the very inexpensive Audioquest spades.

Bare wire has a variety of disadvantages, but the one that puts me off is that it oxidises quickly. With spades and bananas you can terminate the wire in a way that protects the cable from oxidisation.

Hi Swampwalker. Dekay may very well be right. And the method to terminate speaker cables can differ depending on their construction. I actually use a local guy who knows his stuff and has thousands of dollars of gear to do the job right and so I don't have the full answer. In the case of Audioquest cables, most use several solid core cables that are easily stripped - unlike cables like Cardas, Wireworld and Straightwire where very expensive termination equipment is needed. The key thing with the Audioquest is to crimp the cable into the connector with sufficient pressure to "cold weld" the joint. Failure to do this will lead to oxidisation IMO, and is the most critical step. The next precaution is to use a suitable fluid like Dekay's suggestion of De-Oxit, but my guy uses something else that is meant to last a long time - I will ask him about it. Then heat shrink the connector and cable to leave none of the bare wire exposed. I guess Dekay's method allows you to continuously de-oxidise the cable whereas what I am suggesting will potentially degrade over time depending on how well you do it.