Spades or Bananas?

[john.michael]

I am in the process of "designing" the cables for my Home Theater and I have 3 questions:

1 - Spades or Bananas for my Lexicon NT 512 and nautilus 805?

2 - Are the WBT connectors any good or they also fall in the "snake oil" category?

3 - Gold, Silver or copper?

Thanks for your inputs,

JM

PS: BTW, great articles on "snake oil" cables. I was about to spend LOT$$$ of money before I read it.

 

[nibhaz]

Spades and Bananas

I use cables that have spades on one end and bananas one the other. Spades generally have a larger surface area and thus they should provide a better connection. However with ever increasing number of connections on the rear of AVRs and Preamplifiers there often is not sufficient room to use spades, so the need for bananas come in. A nice locking banana provides extra security in insuring nothing accidentally gets pulled out if you have to move your equipment or if you have heavy larger gauge cables.

 

[JohnA]

Going Bananas

I am in the process of "designing" the cables for my Home Theater and I have 3 questions:

1 - Spades or Bananas for my Lexicon NT 512 and nautilus 805?

2 - Are the WBT connectors any good or they also fall in the "snake oil" category?

3 - Gold, Silver or copper?

Thanks for your inputs,

JM

PS: BTW, great articles on "snake oil" cables. I was about to spend LOT$$$ of money before I read it.

Both spades and bananas are good. I use Bananas because my speakers only take bananas and the spades won't fit with my old receiver.

WBT makes very good high quality connectors...it is not snake oil like others...The price is high beacause they use quality parts and also the continuing rize of the Euro (they are a german company).

Just stick with Gold plated stuff.

Here is a link to the WBT stuff:

http://www.partsexpress.com/webpage.cfm?&DID=7&WebPage_ID=292

Good luck making your cables

 

[john.michael]

"Just stick with gold plated stuff".

The funny thing is that the top of the line WBT spades (WBT-0660) say only in the "fine print" that it is gold plated.

Thanks for the input. Guess that since I am going with the Lexicon NT 512 (Bryston 9B St rebranded) I will have the extra space to go with the bigger surface spades.

 

[JohnA]

The reason I said just stick with the gold is because

1) Plain copper will oxidize and provide a poor contact

2) Silver costs more than the gold...go figure

3) Gold plated ones are in the mass market, even if you didn't go with the WBT, you can find tons of other quality gold plated ones.

 

[jaxvon]

Silver also oxidizes more readily than gold. Unless it gets scratched off, your gold plated stuff should be good for a long time. The small amount of conductivity that you lose when using gold is very miniscule compared the the protection against oxidation that you gain.

 

[john.michael]

Right. Near the ocean, as where I live, in Rio de Janeiro, silver oxidizes very rapidly.

THANKS

 

[Burnzy]

I like spades for the speaker end and banannas for the receiver end. I used Vampire Wires spades and banannas and they seem to work pretty good.

Just my 0.02 cents...