Correct way to attach speaker wires... Wait, what!!!

Banana plugs (or BFA) are a good choice if you want to be able to easily change, amps, cables or speakers. They have a large contact area. 4mm in diameter makes their circumference 12.6mm and they are about 18mm long giving a total area of 227 mm2 = 2.27 cm2. That is equivalent to a square of 1.5x1.5cm. This is much larger than the cross section of any normal speaker cable on the market.

Of course the plugs should be of good quality but I think they are an excellent choice for cables up to about 4mm2. If they are screw fitted or crimp on that is basically the same thing as a bare wire connected to a binding post but of course you introduce an extra connection point where the plug meets the jack.

Is soldering bad? How many other solder joints are there in the signal path? There are plenty of them in amplifiers and in most speaker cabinets. So does one or two more make a significant difference?

Solder that contains lead should be avoided as lead has a rectifying property. Unfortunately lead free solder is terrible to work with, which is the reason they added lead in the first place, but it is to be preferred both for its audio properties and for the environment.

Using bare wire on a binding post is very fiddly so for practical reasons I don't like using unterminated cables. It is however the cheapest way of connecting very thick speaker cables and does not require any extra material such as plugs or spades. As some others have pointed out it also opens up for oxidisation of the exposed strands of the cable and that can cause more detonation of the sound in the long run than using good quality plugs with an air tight fit.

If you want to fiddle about with loose cable strands go right ahead. It probably does not sound any worse than using terminated cables but for me personally it's just too much hassle...

No connector sounds are good as bare wire. They all degrade sound based on my extensive testing and mods over the years. Bare wire also holds more sercurely when done right. I find it very simple to do and it just sounds better. Bypass those binding posts folks! You will not believe the improved realism.  

The internet will help you find several classic papers on this topic. Bare wire wins for quality of connection, banana plugs and spades for ease of switching connections. If you use silver wire, the oxidation is said to not degrade the connection per the properties of silver and it's oxidants. 

I have used all manner of connections, and do not have the ability to discern any difference in sound quality. However, I can tell you that if you like doing A/B speaker tests, bare wire connections will be the first to suffer repeated binding post torture. If you aren't swapping cables that frequently, bare wire should please you for it's connection and non-existing "connector" price...

If you want the absolute best connector, please contact me and I will be happy to provide you with the world's most expensive Unobtainium Connectors. I will charge you so much for them, you are bound to get otherwise impossible compliments for your intelligence and excellent choice. Your marriage may suffer, but if you are after Unobtainium to begin with, it's unlikely you have the problems that a marriage can entail. Good luck!

czarivey wrote,   I agree to bare wire, only what to do with that 3/4" thick sausage LOL? I doubt that it's going to be cooperative to the screw-in posts of amp or any posts technically. Need to check if Mapleshade doodz took such thickie from near-by power transformer..

Are you sure you have Mapleshade wire? No wire from them ends in a 3/4 diameter termination. Pierre uses thin solid core with NO terminations, just stripped bare wire. 

vicweast,
I prefer the Bareanakedium Wire Connection (BWC) to all others. Google it.