soldering bannana plug connections! (1 Viewer)

[John Menoni]

I was wondering what the best way to crimp the bannana plugs onto the speaker connections and to the pre-amp. I asked the engineers at M&K sound. They are great guys over there and always provide me with a ton of info whenever I ask them a question. The problem is that I usually am more confused after reading the info than before. They gave me all this info and said that the connection should be air tight. I had no idea that the connection had to be air tight. They said to solder the wire to make a good connection. Can anyone tell me in simple terms how to make a good airtight connection for my speaker cables? I want to get this right the first time. Thanks for the help.:b

 

[John Garcia]

IMO, it's really not necessary to solder the banana connectors onto the wire. Especially if you don't know how to solder. Unless you had extremely nice gear and/or golden ears, you aren't likely to notice the difference. Get the compression kind and be done with it.

 

[Greg_Hammond]

I agree with John G -- Get the screw/compression type banana plugs and you'll be set. The loss incurred by using a screw terminal vs. a soldered connection is negligible for speaker connections.

If you really want soldered connections, take your connectors and cables to a reputable TV/VCR repair company and ask them if they can solder the connections for you. They'll probably charge you a minimal fee, and they tend to be very good with a soldering iron. A poorly soldered connection (eg: done yourself without experience) could end up being worse than a good compression fit.

Greg

 

[Mike Foley]

I was looking at getting the Monster banana quicklock connectors. Is there really a difference in sound between using these and just using the wire without connectors?

 

[John Garcia]

No, there really isn't much of a difference. The main thing is, they keep any stray wires from shorting out to the chassis or other wires, and offers convenience more than anything.

www.partsexpress.com has some less expensive bananas than the Monster ones, ~$3.50/pr vs $10/pr, and they do just as well. Part number 091-330.