Mini-Rant: Human Fingers

@shadorne If that is truly the reason then it makes me feel better about the whole thing. At least its not just a matter of bad design.

@rodman99999 All three of the towers I have close experience with seem to have the same dimensions with the 5 way posts. Bu, even making the 'box' they are in larger would help some.

@reubent With my low end (maybe mid-fi, I don't know) Polk Audio towers I did just get banana connectors which makes things a lot easier.

My Aerial Acoustics 7Bs have hex nuts and a 1/2 inch ratchet works okay. But, my cables are Transparent Super Bi-Wires and are spades on both ends. Even with the ratchet the spades tend to twist under the binding post hex nuts when you tighten them.

The 7Bs will accept banana plugs.

So here are a couple of questions about that situation:

1) You can get banana plugs that have a screw off base which can accept a spade from the speaker cable. Is that recommended? Do I need to buy super pricey banana plugs for that application? If so, recommendations? 

2) I could simply cut the spades off the Transparent cables and add good banana plugs but not sure what that would do to the value or performance of those expensive cables?

One issue with that is that I do not know the AWG size of the actual wire in the Transparent cable but they look to be significantly larger that the 12 AWG cable I use on my low end system and I'm not sure they make banana plugs that take larger wire sizes but I have not researched it.

I like these on my amps and speakers for the very reasons described.

https://www.dedicatedaudio.com/products/cardas-patented-binding-post-cpbp-crl-long

Engineering to a space/cost criterion. I have my wife do the connections, I just tighten.

 "Even with the ratchet the spades tend to twist under the binding post hex nuts when you tighten them."   Spade connectors do that, under what's being tightened(regardless of the application/not just Five Ways), unless one prevents it, by holding them(or the connected wire), with a fingertip, pointy pliers, etc.   Unless I'm mistaken, most mainline cable constructors offer termination replacement services, for their own products.  I've always had mine(Audioquest/Kimber/Analysis Plus) built with bananas on the output end, with excellent result.  

I don’t mean to be dense here, but I don’t see anything close to 1/2" or 7/16" on any of my speakers or amps that the binding post wrench will fit over to tighten. I am only bringing it up because I love the idea and agree with n80.