Bananas / Spades

Cody@TARA

Cody@TARA

New member
Joined
Dec 18, 2014
Messages
12
Location
Ashland, OR
Hello! Cody from TARA Labs here again.

Over the years, we receive many emails asking about termination for speaker cables. What we have found is that in the USA, the preferred termination is spades. But in Europe, it seems that bananas are the preferred terminations. I personally like spades, but would love to hear which termination you prefer?

Hope you're all having a wonderful holiday!
 
Spades here but it is nice to have the option of spades & banana as in threaded.
 
I think the geographic difference in preferences is the European equipment uses Eurotrash binding posts. I hate that plastic covered .....(sorry, I can't think of a polite noun).

I prefer bananas on lightweight cables because they work on anything except the Cardas Patented Binding Posts (single knob). For heavier and stiff cables I prefer spades because I feel that cables connected from perpendicular to the post have less leverage and therefore less strain on the equipment and cable.
 
I prefer banana's. I believe you also get more 'surface contact' with banana's. Never had a banana connection become lose. Where years ago when I had spades I would have to tighten them at the speaker end every few months. I do have Nordost Frey's which are quite light so I see no problem of them becoming lose. I demoed some JPS S3's a couple of years ago that had WBT locking banana's. Seemed very secure for the 2 weeks I had them.
I'd be curious to learn what Tara's research shows which connection is best.
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Me too
 
I really would prefer that ALL speakers used the same size Spades so I did not have to adapt Bananas to my Synergistic Spades in order to use them with my Dynaudio speakers. My Clearfield use the lesser width spades, which is what is on the Synergistic cables. Speaker and cable MFGs would serve the customers better if they could adopt a universal dimension for both posts and spades.
 
octadyndude said:
I prefer banana's. I believe you also get more 'surface contact' with banana's. Never had a banana connection become lose. Where years ago when I had spades I would have to tighten them at the speaker end every few months. I do have Nordost Frey's which are quite light so I see no problem of them becoming lose. I demoed some JPS S3's a couple of years ago that had WBT locking banana's. Seemed very secure for the 2 weeks I had them.

Me too
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Totally agree here. I'm a locking banana man. Furutech Fux CF202R is my favourite choice. I also like the WBT.

The solid silver interchangeable system is OK on the WireWorld but they are too soft and the potential for tarnish worries me.
 
Steve said:
The solid silver interchangeable system is OK on the WireWorld but they are too soft and the potential for tarnish worries me.
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Valid concern but the silver terminals from Wireworld can be polished periodically and silver oxide is still more conductive than copper, and certainly more conductive than gold, rhodium, etc.
 
Hiker said:
Valid concern but the silver terminals from Wireworld can be polished periodically and silver oxide is still more conductive than copper, and certainly more conductive than gold, rhodium, etc.
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Noted. The Wireworld silver connectors can be replaced easily too. Burn-in is quick.

Downside to rhodium is the long burn-in or break-in period.
 
Steve said:
Totally agree here. I'm a locking banana man. Furutech Fux CF202R is my favourite choice. I also like the WBT.

The solid silver interchangeable system is OK on the WireWorld but they are too soft and the potential for tarnish worries me.
Click to expand...

Another vote for locking bananas where the wires enter at an angle to reduce leverage on the binding posts and connecter.
 
+1 for bananas, as long as they're quality. I've seen some that fall apart quite easily...
They're much more convenient than spades, with more surface contact, and, it's my impression, they put less burden on the binding posts.


alexandre
 
Cody@TARA said:
Hello! Cody from TARA Labs here again.

Over the years, we receive many emails asking about termination for speaker cables. What we have found is that in the USA, the preferred termination is spades. But in Europe, it seems that bananas are the preferred terminations. I personally like spades, but would love to hear which termination you prefer?

Hope you're all having a wonderful holiday!
Click to expand...
I have 2 questions after reading some of the posts.
1-Which termination has the most surface contact?
2-Which has less signal loss and why?
 
I think there is more to say about this than just banana's or spades. Let's first of all differentiate between plugs or spades. Because the plugs come in different versions:

1 The typical plugs with springs type contacts:
1300022436-26943.6.jpg


2 The hollow Bananas
carbonrhodi1.4.jpg


3 The plug type with a spreading mechanism for better contact (also prevents accidental unplugging)
1286718754-20568.3.jpg


Then, next to the question of which type of plug or spades we need to answer the following questions:
- soldering or screwing (there is different types for this),
- which material: generally we can choose silver, gold or rhodium where the latter has the better conductive properties
 
Welcome Cody!

I've always held on to the convention that spades provide a "better" physical (thus electrical?) connection as you can tighten them beyond how you can tighten (most) bananas. Of course, locking bananas changed that a bit.

However, all my stuff is (conventional) bananas - go figure. :huh:
 
I've never seen ferrules being used in a loudspeaker wire application. Do they make solid silver and solid copper ferrules? Or are they nickel and tin blends?

My my experience with the Furutech Flux bananas and spades is that the compression grub does not split stranded wire when it clamps down. Sealing it off with a bit of silicon before screwing on the barrel makes it nice and air tight.
 
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