2. cables
  3. 1269902376

Why terminations on speaker cable?

I'm wondering why using bare leads with speaker cable is not more common. There is really never a case when any kind of terminator is going to result in clean conductivity since even if said terminator has more surface area to contact the binding post, it is still soldered to the wires at a single point.

Are speaker cables terminators just audiophile baggage?

I'm going to try some unterminated cables for my speakers.

At the very least I think it will likely be an improvement with HE speakers where voltages & currents never get very high anyway.
paulfolbrecht
elescher's avatar
elescher
112 posts
 
The era of having basic stranded wire that you can just twist and screw on to your speaker and amp binding posts is no longer here. Most speaker wires these days are made up of esoteric materials and complicated geometry which make it impossible to connect without terminations.
xti16
1,525 posts
 
Depends on the cable. For example now I have the Nordost Frey. It would be tough but not impossible to put all the strands through the binding post. Also they are silver and would oxidize too fast. That being said I ran unterminated copper stranded bi-wire cables for over 20 years. Until I took my speakers to different dealers to compare I had no reason to terminate them (except I would cut them back a couple of inches every few years). Then it became a nice convenience.
macdadtexas
1,794 posts
 
That's a great question. I am guessing because you can't mark up bare wire 1000%.
Post removed 
paulfolbrecht OP
603 posts
 
I should have mentioned I like solid-core wire. Stranded would indeed pose some issues.

I see that Mapleshade sells a nice, simple, unterminated speaker cable. Silver-place solid-core copper. Cool!
More to discover