Monster Cable Quick Lock Flex Pins (1 Viewer)

[MikeJason]

I purchased a pair of these to connect my speaker wire to my receiver. I paid $22 for a pair!

1. Are these the same things as bannana plugs?

2. Do they really make a difference?

3. Should I have them on both ends, connecting to the speakers and connecting to the receiver?

4. Is there another brand that will do the same thing for less $?


Thanks!

 

[Chu Gai]

That's expensive for just one pair. Online you can get them for less for 2 pair but I'd imagine they'll zap you with s/h.

1) No. Banana plugs can look like this where they're individual

(these are AR's from Best Buy at $9 for all 4...use a set screw to lock the wire in place) They're also available in quantity at a variety of places. Click on this link for some decent pricing and then just check out one of the packs which will show you how the speaker wire goes in.

On the other hand they also come looking like this:


Now you can just run a Google search on banana plugs to look at various vendors or locally you could find them at various department stores, Radio Shack, your local Guitar Center, most electronics stores, etc. Online, ]Parts Express is fairly popular.

2. Terminating your wire in some sort of connector makes good sense. It avoids the possibility of stray wires touching and shorting the terminals and the possible problems that can ensue. It's also a neat, tidy way of making connections. If you're wondering which sort of connection is optimum for signal transfer, I can only say I have great reservations about this being an audible issue. People like to argue over the silliest of things instead of focussing on broader, more important aspects.

3. Its my opinion that the wire should be terminated on both ends.

4. I believe other approaches to the pins were illustrated above. You may also want to consider using spades at the speaker terminals. I happen to think that spades make a nice secure connection at the speaker terminals that's not prone to accidental removal while bananas at the receiver end facilitate moving things around and repositioning. Others of course have different needs and buy accordingly. They look like this,


which was taken fromPartsExpress. Again, many sources exist and I can only recommend that if you're buying online to consolidate your purchases at one place to avoid extra s/h.