The best way to connect wire to speakers?

[diegs]

I've searched and read what I could on the subject but could find what I was looking for.
The best way in my mind is to solder the speaker wire directly to the crossover inside the speaker. But that's not very sensible, but most likely the best connection in terms of least resistance. So what's the next best?
Bare wire on the binding post?
Soldered bare wire end to the binding post?
Banana or spade?
I don't unhook my stuff very often and would use deans silver solder for the connections.
Any thoughts?

 

[markw]

Bananas, bare wires, or spades all deliver the same "quality" of sound. It's more a matter of what you prefer.

What sources have you used for your search? What do they recommend?

 

[mtrycrafts]

I've searched and read what I could on the subject but could find what I was looking for.
The best way in my mind is to solder the speaker wire directly to the crossover inside the speaker. But that's not very sensible, but most likely the best connection in terms of least resistance. So what's the next best?
Bare wire on the binding post?
Soldered bare wire end to the binding post?
Banana or spade?
I don't unhook my stuff very often and would use deans silver solder for the connections.
Any thoughts?

The amount of resistance reduction you gain would be minuscule, not worth that being a consideration at all. You gain more by upgrading to the next larger ga wire.
Follow mark's post on convenience.

 

[Alex2507]

... the best connection in terms of least resistance ...

...is a matter that you could really waste a lot of time, money and effort on.

The resistance in all the connection methods listed is negligible in as Mark pointed out, a quality of sound perspective. The word indistinguishable comes to mind. I use locking banana plugs from BJC because they are cool and they look sharp. Actually I move stuff around and got sick of dealing with bare wire.

 

[Haoleb]

One thing you dont want to do is tin the ends of your wire. Number one you wont be able to compress the binding posts down to get a solid connection as you would with bare wire. Also solder is a pretty poor conductor when compared to bare copper. Silver solder is better but the amount of silver content is still small.

I perfer to have a connector on my cables for aestetic reasons as well as when properly done it will not allow the cable to slowly oxidize as i often see with bare wire. I also prefer ring terminals over spades or bannanas since they cannot be pulled out without unscrewing the nut from the binding post completely. Most posts dont allow for this though.

 

[diegs]

Thanks for the input. I orginally googled "is bare wire better than banana plugs" and a few other variations before posting. The links I read from the searches generally stated bare wire is best, however with tarnishing some recommended to clean the bare wire with steel every once in a while.
My other hobby is rc cars and its a best practice to solder all connections from the battery to speed control to the motor to reduce resistance. The electric current in electric rc is very high and even the best connectors (deans ultra plugs) create some resisitance.
Based on the comments here it seems like there is no "sound" advantage of bare wire over banana plugs or any other connector. The extreme of soldering speaker wire directly to the crossover is silly.
I am planning on going with bare wire for my connections.
Anybody know of anybody who has tested the various methods of connecting speaker wire to speakers, measuring resistance using an average current and voltage put out by a 100 watt amplifier? Some hard scientific facts could come in handy.

 

[Djizasse]

Some hard scientific facts could come in handy.

If you could then translate them to "can I hear it".

 

[diegs]

That's a very good point! Ok then ideally the "experiment" would first measure with some type of multi-meter or of electronic equipement and then a real world test with the various connections to verify if any difference is heard or measured with a microphone/analyzer.
There was a hdmi cable test done like this a while back. They used some fancy electronics to measure the capacity of various (length and company) cables and then performed real world tests. On paper, a few hdmi cables that measured less than ideal, where still able to pass the signal from source to monitor. That study is what turned me onto monoprice and steered me away from monster for my cable needs.
I think measuring (equipement and ear) the speaker connections would be a insightful test. In then end most likely no difference would be found, but one never knows until proven otherwise.

 

[Shock]

The "best" way is the easiest in my opinion.

Banana's make installation a snap, but if you don't have them bare wire works just as good. I used to use bare wire all the time until I found some sick deals on banana plugs.