Bananas, spades or stripped cable in Hi-Fi?

Is it better to terminate with bananas, spades or by leaving the cable skinned? This is one of the questions that customers ask us most frequently. Each solution has its advantages and disadvantages, which we will tell you about in this new article in our blog. A necessary premise, however: our discussion makes sense the moment the connections are applied to high quality devices and considering a high level of the materials used. For example, a banana made of pure copper will be better than one made of brass. Let us then take stock of what is the best solution between bananas, spades and stripped cable.

The banana connection is undoubtedly the most common, because it provides the most convenience and excellent protection from oxidation of the conductor. There are various types of banana on the market, the most common being those with springs on the pin. This type of banana is the least performing because of the spring component, which impairs the stability and intensity of the force applied in the contact (see photo).

Another popular type of banana (we use it in all but the Invictus series) is the BFA banana, which is characterized by a central contact that narrows. This is why it is hard to insert, and rightly so, because it means it has a better seal. The advantages of this banana over the spring banana are:

1. Greater resilience over time.
2. Greater contact surface area.
3. If you loosen the BFA spring system, you can restore it by widening it slightly.

The problem with this banana is that the foil that forms the insertion pole (where there is that wavy part) is more fragile than the others and could bend under stress. That is why in the Magnus and Dedalus series we have designed BFA bananas with a center pin that provides this kind of seal. Also because these bananas are made of copper and tellurium, which is softer than brass and therefore tends to bend. The only standard BFA bananas are those of Primus, a series for which, however, we have provided an increased foil to prevent bending.

The last and most widely used type of bananas is the expansion type, which through a pivot system provides a constant and precise seal (series Invictus). There are other, less common types of bananas, but the most commonly used are these three.

Ricable (but almost all spades s on the market are like this) use spades with double overhangs, which fit the vast majority of pins. Increased performance is provided by a larger contact surface area and thickness (in good spades ) of the connector body. The mechanical seal is virtually identical to that of the banana, especially with modern speaker and amplifier terminals, which have a knurled part capable of preventing ungluing.

This solution is less convenient than "putting on and taking off," because each time you have to unmold the clamp as in the stripped cable. However, inserting the fork is easier than stripped cable, and most importantly, it does not depend on the ratio of conductor to hole size. In fact, it sometimes happens to have small holes for stripped cable or large conductors. Another disadvantage of the fork is that many multichannel amplifiers do not accept it, while they always accept banana and stripped cable. An advantage of the fork over the banana, on the other hand, is that less space is needed behind the contact, because the cable goes immediately parallel to the device, whereas with the banana some space is needed behind for the connector and the cable at the start.

Usually stripped cables are used in moderate value connections, especially in home cinema, because the advancing oxidation affects quality less on Hi-End systems.

Warning: rather than using poor quality connectors, much better is stripped cable, perhaps tinned. Quality connectors, in the balance of advantages/disadvantages over stripped cable, are still better anyway. Let us say that stripped cable is academically the best connection, but only in the short term, so we do not recommend it for high-level connections. The values in the graph below refer to the medium and long term. Another disadvantage is the practicality of using it, because you have to remember to tighten the terminals from time to time and because, if you have to disconnect them, before connecting them again it is good to cut off a part of the cable and strip a new one, until you find one that is not oxidized.

Bananas, spades or stripped cable? All these considerations fall the moment you use bananas or spades of poor quality; in this case the sound quality would inevitably be, to the point that we recommend without ifs and buts the use of the stripped cable. Ricable, in addition to offering custom length, also gives its customers a choice of termination, whether with bananas or spades. Just indicate this to us in a note when completing your purchase. For those who would like to make use of a stripped cable, we can only refer you to our Custom division, designed for DIYers.