Eliminating spade connectors, upgrading bits, soldering all of it in

STOP !!! First a word of caution. Heat will very quickly run down a speaker tab and ruin the fine little tinsel leads going to the cone. They are VERY heat conductive. You MUST use a heat sink to prevent any heat going down the wire. Especially the tabs on a tweeter are SOOO delicate.

Easy solution. For many years I've used simple 'Play-Doh'. It's works exceptionally well as a heat sucker with a bit of protective moisture content. Roll a small line and then wrap it around the lead. It will absorb all the heat and quickly dry out and crumble off and your left with a perfect solder connection. This is a MUST do!

Each clip connector has 2 weak points. One is the crimp joint the other is the female pressure fit sliding on the tab. Eliminate that and you have one superior connection with one solder joint. The difference in resistance is measurable but slight. However, in a 3 way speaker there are 6 tab connections for all three speakers. That's two bad connections for each clip = eliminating 12 inferior connections. That is a total 24 inferior connections removed from both speakers. Remove the clips on the binding posts is another 8 connections. Totals now at 32 crappy connections you can correct.

Many speakers also use clips on the crossover side as well. That would be 56 bad connections!! This all adds up. Where ever you can replace clips and use solder the resistance will go down.

There is no question there will be an improvement in resistance but by how much? Would it be audible? Depends on how many connections get replaced but the end result would be slight but an improvement nontheless! Lets not forget Audiophiles pay thousands of dollars to get an improvement that yield this kind of improvement.

Also... it gets better... as the clips age they will get worse with time and will increase resistance. The metal connection begins to 'Fret' and deteriorates. Solder will last much longer.

The exception is in a car with higher vibration you need to use clips. Solder can crack and fall off. In this case the clip is NOT superior in sound quality but is superior under vibration longevity.

High quality home speakers should be all point to point hand soldered. Clips offer NO advantage. None! They are inferior connections.

Congrats on taking the time to get connected properly! It's definitely better than it was!!

Enjoy!

I think if I were to build my own speakers and / or amp - preamp, I would consider hard wiring both & eliminate the detachable speaker wires & power cords & possibly even the AC wall outlet too like larger industrial appliances. You can always turn the power off to the amp w/ the breaker if needed. Obviously this has some practical disadvantages but I would think the sound quality improvement would be clear. 

Every single connector in my extremely modified Khorns eliminated, all point to point wiring, silver solder. Can't determine the improvement in isolation since this was done simultaneously with hook up wire,  film cap, inductor, binding post upgrades. For sure using proper heat sinks when doing speaker work is critical, very fine wire in drivers, especially tweeters. 

I too have contemplated ridding components of IEC and hard wiring. I also see so many dissimilar metals used in connections, has to impact sound to some extent.

People will purchase very expensive speaker cables and attach them to a binding post that has crappy little connector clips hidden on the inside just out of view.

Point to point soldered wiring is admired in amplifiers yet in speakers it seems to be of no concern for some reason. Is the thought of soldering too difficult? It does take a tiny bit more effort.

I see clip connectors used in high end speakers. The reason they do this is simple, It's faster and cheaper. It's also hidden inside the box and people are clueless to the disadvantages. Yet they spend hours applying beautiful exterior finishes and buffing them to a flawless high gloss that does absolutely nothing to improve the sound quality. 

Drops of water make an ocean. Every clip you eliminate your speaker improves. 

I worked at a speaker factory on the production assembly line in the early 1980s going into college.  I remember all of the time put in to the cabinets, drivers, attention to the special look of the speakers, yet the internal wiring and connectors were just okay, nothing special. 

Later on a good friend was into buying the so called "signature" version of the speakers he liked all made in Canada.  He’d compare the standard models to the special signature models with the all silver soldered-in connections and we’d do some bakeoff listening sessions and A/B them. There was a difference in sound. 

Same approach - I revised some of those old factory speakers we put together on the line, picked up a few pairs used in local classifieds and did these same type of mods, and could hear a difference as well. Re-sold them to try the same on a few others, and people enjoyed them with their systems, something I tried many years back just for fun.

re: K-horns, I could definitely see how some of the ultra-high efficiency systems would be fun to listen to the differences and compare. A buddy does this with his, we designed three pairs of replica Onken Altec speakers this way, or they wired them up like this after the cabinets were all designed. They took things to another level, and that was really fun to hear on some crazy heavliy customized AudioNote amps with those big horn speakers.  Bringing back inspirational memories for sure.  

Its been a while since I’ve done any speaker tweaks or mods and it was fun to re-try something like this that finally got a chance to go back and re-do. Finding easy and small low cost things to do like this that help make a difference is rewarding. Something to do on a rainy day over the winter perhaps.

Inspiration - 

I was pleasantly surprised after my local amp tech/designer/upgrader reconfigured and soldered in the bridge rectifiers, wiring to new binding Cardas binding posts, and a few other things for me on my little Class A 50w solid state amp. The results from this is what inspired me to go back and re-do the speakers in a similar manner. Maybe a good winter project for someone else here to try and compare on yours! Something different to post about here I guess.  Enjoy! :)