Spades Verses Bananas?

Had a long talk years ago with a high end dealer in NYC. He said that ironically they both sound the same, and for a home system, where the cables are not constantly being switched, there was no downside to bananas. But that for dealers, for whom bananas were an important convenience, that the bananas would degrade...I have found this to be true in my systems...

I never compared same brand/composition/quality spades vs bananas 🍌 

I did compare copper, rhodium, gold plated and prefer gold plated connectors. Lately rhodium doesn’t agree with my ears…don’t know why…just annoys me and sounds off. 
My speakers and my amp made the decision easy - neither the speakers nor the amp accept bananas 

This is a great discussion post with lots of good points made. I agree with those who mentioned it will often depend on the speakers. I've had speakers with binding posts that prefer spades, other times they are terrible with spades. Same with bananas where sometimes the binding post angle makes it really impractical to keep a solid banana connection.

All things being equal, I might prefer a spade if I knew I would not be changing anything for the long term. Knowing my style I do like swapping gear often so a well made banana connector works better from that point of view.

I build Audio Power Cables on a bespoke basis and the problem is emitter/collector then collector/emitter. This means always Spade at amp and always Banana at speaker. If you are making the cables yourself use WBT Silver Solder if it's relevant. The idea of holding large gauge cable with tiny screws is not the best and solder flows round and through things. With these connectors keep things simple such as Kimber.

+1 for locking bananas

Been using Monster Cable X-Terminators.