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Speakon connections

sergeauckland

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Personally, I don't like the locking bananas. Conventional 4mm banana plugs offer a decent connection but allow for the inevitable accident or trip to happen without tearing out a jack, pulling over a speaker or yanking an amplifier onto the floor.

Locking RCAs are even worse. They almost always lock on the shield (outer) and I've seen more than my fair share of torn off RCA outers on "Audiophile's" equipment.

What ever happened to the 240V 10A rated two/three-pin XLR style plug/sockets used in the 80s on professional gear for power? What were they called? Red sheathed pins IIRC. I've got some someplace. Made by Cannon I think. Beautiful things.

edit: here I found a pic on the internet
View attachment 33800

View attachment 33801
The Cannon LNE was a lovely mains connector. My understanding is that it got replaced by the IEC because of safety concerns that it was relatively easy to touch the live pin, but don't see the IEC being that much safer. Current handling was only 6 amps, so that may have had a bearing. By the way, the picture above shows the plug to take power from a socket, not to a socket. The normal connector on the live cable would be the mating half.


I suppose it was also more expensive than the now standard IEC 'kettle lead'


Edit:- Your edit just beat my post, so deleted the picture.
S.
 

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Wombat

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Let's not get carried away, here. Domestic gear is not subject to the connection/disconnection rates of pro gear.


Look inside the box:

D&D;

Oops, spades.

EX6-5-back.png




JBL;

L26, spades.

L26_3_125A.jpg



K120 MI speaker(harder life expected);

Low pressure spring-loaded hole-throughs, similar to the speaker cable connections on many amps.

untitled.jpg



Most loudspeaker drivers use spade connectors. Quality spade connectors with quality solder/soldering or quality crimping are a well established and proven connector, just not what is intended for frequent connection/disconnection.

Please guys, don't start cutting your wrists. :eek:

Audio hobbyists can get so anal over trivialities and miss the practicality for particular applications.. :p
 
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DonH56

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I call those crimp-on connectors, maybe my terminology is wrong. This is what I call a spade connector:

1568893267420.png


One of the tweaks some do is to solder the crimp-on connectors to the speaker terminals. Positive contact, but also likely to cause damage when you heat the little wire to the voice coil.
 

Wombat

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I call those crimp-on connectors, maybe my terminology is wrong. This is what I call a spade connector:

View attachment 33838

One of the tweaks some do is to solder the crimp-on connectors to the speaker terminals. Positive contact, but also likely to cause damage when you heat the little wire to the voice coil.

Solder obsessiveness.

I think the name has possibly changed in general usage. I always thought that spade lugs looked more like a spade than a fork. I saw lots of types of open-faced(forked) connectors used in power station panel wiring back-in-the-day. I am sure they all had a specific name but it is lost on me.

https://www.narva.com.au/categories/electrical/terminals/blade_terminals

Maybe it is a USA vs rest-of world thing?

RCA connectors have survived the test of time in consumer applications. Poor quality products may be to blame for any unease re performance. I have 45 y.o. ,unassuming looking, RCA interconnects that came with audio products that still work just fine.
The Galvanic Corrosion Scale is something generally not given attention to when selecting RCA connectors.
 
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DonH56

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Solder obsessiveness.

Agreed! And I had to fix a number of speakers back when people were doing it. The best were the ones who used a big solder gun or one of those little micro-torches and managed to burn up the wires up to and sometimes including the voice coil. The winner was the guy who used a micro-torch and burned up (literally) the cone in the process...

I think the name has possibly changed in general usage. I always thought that spade lugs looked more like a spade than a fork. I saw lots of types of open-faced(forked) connectors used in power station panel wiring back-in-the-day. I am sure they all had a specific name but it is lost on me.

https://www.narva.com.au/categories/electrical/terminals/blade_terminals

Maybe it is a USA vs rest-of world thing?

RCA connectors have survived the test of time in consumer applications. Poor quality products may be to blame for any unease re performance. I have 45 y.o. ,unassuming looking, RCA interconnects that came with audio products that still work just fine.

You're probably right. I have several boxes of them, someplace, but would not swear to what they are called. A quick search yielded pictures of the same terminal called "blade", "crimp", and "spade" connectors so maybe my memory is faulty, or the distinction has evolved over time. As you said, really nothing to worry about.
 

jhaider

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Most loudspeaker drivers use spade connectors.

The typical drive unit terminals don’t take spades. They take “female quick disconnects” like these:

images


That’s Neutrik’s special version, nl-Faston. It has a pin that fits in the hole on the male tab to lock it in place. They are for Speakon jacks. Most quick disconnects are friction fit, but either way there’s more contact than a spade.
 

Wombat

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The typical drive unit terminals don’t take spades. They take “female quick disconnects” like these:

images


That’s Neutrik’s special version, nl-Faston. It has a pin that fits in the hole on the male tab to lock it in place. They are for Speakon jacks. Most quick disconnects are friction fit, but either way there’s more contact than a spade.


My experience, over many years, is this is typical of what is used on driver lugs:

untitled.png


I doubt the connector you show is commonplace. It does appear to be superior, though.
I can't see the quick-disconnect being an advantage for in-box drivers.
 
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jhaider

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My experience, over many years, is this is typical of what is used on driver lugs:

View attachment 33840

I doubt the connector you show is commonplace. It does appear to be superior, though.

That’s the same type of female quick disconnect, just without Neutrik’s locking pin. They’re also made insulated, with closed barrel crimp ends, and many other permutations.

In the US the Neutrik ones are about a dime each, purchased in lots of 100. The disadvantage of the Neutrik one is that the body is too long to fit your fancy crimper’s terminal holder. I think Rennsteig has a special holder, but their die kit is around $500 and their generic open barrel die works just fine.

Either way, it’s not a spade/fork connector.
 

AudioSceptic

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That’s the same type of female quick disconnect, just without Neutrik’s locking pin. They’re also made insulated, with closed barrel crimp ends, and many other permutations.

Either way, it’s not a spade/fork connector.
"Spade" is the wrong term when describing external speaker connections. "Fork" makes much more sense. I might market my own high-end highly musical version, Perfect Pitch Forks...
 

Wombat

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The main point is that these basic connectors when correctly utilised are suitable for loudspeaker driver connection and many other applications.
Don't buy unknown brands.
 
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DonH56

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"Spade" is the wrong term when describing external speaker connections. "Fork" makes much more sense. I might market my own high-end highly musical version, Perfect Pitch Forks...

Sounds like a devil of an idea... :)
 

GrimSurfer

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"Spade" is the wrong term when describing external speaker connections. "Fork" makes much more sense. I might market my own high-end highly musical version, Perfect Pitch Forks...

Fer fork's sake, why didn't I think of that?
 

Frank Dernie

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Not sure I agree with your conclusion there, copper is soft. :)
I don't think I have ever seen a copper speaker spade lug, usually plated hard brass.
I blued up (applied engineers blue) to a spade lug surface decades ago since it looked like a crap system and found only the tinyest negligible IMO actual contact.
The little soft thin ones used on low current wires are maybe fine but I haven't seen them on speaker cables.
 

GrimSurfer

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That’s the same type of female quick disconnect, just without Neutrik’s locking pin. They’re also made insulated, with closed barrel crimp ends, and many other permutations.

In the US the Neutrik ones are about a dime each, purchased in lots of 100. The disadvantage of the Neutrik one is that the body is too long to fit your fancy crimper’s terminal holder. I think Rennsteig has a special holder, but their die kit is around $500 and their generic open barrel die works just fine.

Either way, it’s not a spade/fork connector.

The connector is one thing but it's the manner of crimping that gives mechanical strength and ensures a good electrical connection. I've seen (and done) so many bad crimps that I solder critical joints (though one can just as easily bugger this up too).

Purpose built die kits do, however, take a great deal of drama out of crimping.
 

jhaider

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The main point is that these basic connectors when correctly utilised are suitable for loudspeaker driver connection and many other applications.
Don't buy unknown brands.

Another point is that connectors used internally in speakers or amplifiers are out of the scope of connectors used externally on cables between loudspeakers and amplifiers such as Speakon.

Also, there are some known brands to avoid too. Molex is owned by the Koch brothers...

@AudioSceptic did you just hit on a means to fund Amir’s speaker testing? A few changes: make it a four tiered line of “Tuning Forks” -low E, middle C, Perfect Pitch, and Perfect Pitch A4-432 Maestro Edition. The difference? Break in time of course :)
 

DonH56

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Also, there are some known brands to avoid too. Molex is owned by the Koch brothers...

Is that really necessary? And they gave tons of money to charities and research foundations so I'll be sticking with Molex. Not that I have much say in it, I have to deal with Purchasing...
 
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