To terminate or not to terminate

[psbfan9]

Hi, I hope I'm posting this question in the right area.

I up graded my speaker wire a few months ago. I went from 16 awg to 10 awg. I have a 40 foot run under the floor and above the drop ceiling the basement. The 10g is so thick that I may not have the best connection on the receiver. I prefer unterminated connections, I have no science behind this, just my preference. Now, my question is, can terminate the ends of the 10g wire to the receiver and leave the speaker ends unterminated? Will this cause a problem?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks.
Barry

 

[BMXTRIX]

As long as there are no shorts in the wiring, then this should not be an issue.

 

[j_garcia]

There is practically no difference terminated or unterminated. Note too that not all connectors accept 10AWG wire, so if it doesn't fit the receiver, you'll want to check the connectors you buy also

 

[psbfan9]

Thank you both for the responses. J Garcia, thanks for the tip about the connectors fitting.
I also found the cable/wire forum. My apologies to admin. for posting this in the wrong area.

Thanks.
Barry

 

[m_vanmeter]

10 gauge !!!

on many a/v receivers you will have a hard time getting bare copper connections made properly on the very tightly spaced 5-way binding posts even with 12 ga. wire.

While bare copper connections are fairly easy at the speaker binding posts ... IF.... they accept 10 ga. wire at all, I do recommend you consider good banana plugs for the connections at the back of the receiver. Take a look at GLS banana plugs which do claim to accept 10 ga. wire (although on some wire the insulation may be too thick for any banana plug).
http://www.speakerrepair.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=genem&Product_Code=BR10&Category_Code=safe_connect

or, currently out of stock until February http://www.speakerrepair.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=genem&Product_Code=BS10

There is no black magic in banana plugs, they do not "improve" anything acoustically or electrically, they just make the connection to tightly spaced binding posts much, much easier.

 

[davidtwotrees]

Another downside to bare wire at the amp/receiver is you really increase the chance for stray wires to short on the back of the unit.
Also, as an audioholic you will find that you will fiddle with your wiring a couple of times a year, or more. The banannas will make this much, much easier, I feel.

 

[j_garcia]

I actually use the locking bananas from Bluejeans (which GLS locking plugs are nearly identical to) on my receiver side because I had an issue with the ones I was using previously. Two times I had one lose connection and I spent a bunch of time trying to figure out if I had a bad channel, if the speaker had a problem, and it turned out to be that the banana slipped out just enough not to make contact even though it LOOKED like it was OK. That won't happen with the locking ones They aren't cheap for bananas, but they work great. The ferrule doesn't accept 10AWG, but it unscrews and I suspect they will accept a larger AWG than 10.

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/speaker/index.htm