spades vs. bananas

I beleive in not using banannas just for the reason of possible failure. The bananna puts stress on the wire connection of the cable (gravity) and over time can fail. The bananna connector also puts stress on the binding post and can damage the binding post over time. Especially concidering the weight of many quality cables. Stay with spades or bare wire if possible. Sometimes this can be difficult when using bi or tri-cable or bi-wire. In this case you can have them custom made to fit your application. JMHO

I agree with Mikec. Bannanas are covenient when swithing out speaker but I always have some sort of problem with them. I swithed to spades since now my system is pretty stable, and convenience isn't needed. For me Bare wires always end up grounding out, which causes a whole new set of problems.

Bare wire has a variety of disadvantages, but the one that puts me off is that it oxidises quickly. With spades and bananas you can terminate the wire in a way that protects the cable from oxidisation.

Redkiwi- I am about to terminate some AQ cables with spades (amp) and bananas (speaker). Others must be, as well. If you could post your recommended method to prevent oxidation, I'm sure lots of us would be in your debt.

I use bare wire and just clean the connections every couple of months. If I break a strand of wire (Kimber) I snip off half an inch and strip the wires (8 of them again) which takes a few minutes with a good wire stripper. Mine is one of the old simple ones that you can adjust with a set screw. The connections take very little time to maintain and sound better than any connector that I have used. The only expense to maintain the connections is for a contact cleaner such as De-Oxit. I recommend bare wire if you can do it. I also tried using bananas on a pair of DIY jumpers and found bare wire connections to sound better as well. In this case the bare connection was not very convenient, but they still sounded better. The only time that I use bananas (solder less) are if I am trying out a bunch of different equipment or when I am experimenting with placement of the same. Once the equipment is set then off come the connectors. The only situation that I can think of in which I would use them is if a cable were designed or voiced with their use in mind.