Question about binding posts (1 Viewer)

[Rex Quinn]

I'm just wondering how tight you're supposed to screw these things down using bare speaker wire. If i screw it as far down as I can, the wire flattens insteat of being round and twisted. Am I supposed to tighten it so the wire is secure but just enough so that the wire stays cylinder like and not pressed? Or does it make a diffrence? Newbie question, I know, but better safe than sorry

 

[Bob McElfresh]

Good to moderate finger-tight is usually all you need. You are fighting the stress/weight of the wires. It's ok to squish the copper strands. You dont need to maintain the cylinder shape.

But - Dont have the copper strands sticking out too far out the other side. These could cause shorts later on.

I'm a big fan of the dual banana plugs from Radio Shack (2xx-308) or the single bananas (2xx-306) if the dual plugs stick out too far. These are a lot easier to wire thick 12 ga.

(You DO have your receiver on the bottom shelf of your rack? This allows the wires to flow out with minimal stress and keeps them away from the interconnects.)

 

[Rex Quinn]

Ok cool, thanks for the info. I have a kind of entertainment center (it's a bedroom setup) but i've cut a tiny hole in the back on the bottom (where the reciever is) to feed the speaker cable out seperate from the other wires. One more question though, most binding posts have two holes to insert speaker wire in. Why are there two? For convenience of speaker wire insertion, or (unlikley) are you supposed to stick the wire through the two holes then screw it down?

 

[Bob McElfresh]

Uhhhh... The binding posts I've seen have a single side hole that you stick bare wire or pin-connectors into. The hole on the end is for a banana plug.

Do you have posts with 2 different sized holes drilled through the metal? This could be to accomidate different gauge speaker wire.