I'm always amazed by threads like this. Seems like many on this board are more interested in Snake Oil and Urban Legend than facts. The discussion of things like "Cable Pants" to keep the speaker connections from oxidizing is quite entertaining.

So... I'm going to inject a bit of fact. Thursday evening at home I grabbed some binding posts, spade lugs, pin connectors, and banana plugs out of my tool box, along with some speaker wire. Friday morning I took about 20 minutes to test the impedance of the connections in different configurations. I used a Hewlett-Packard 6.5 digit DMM, and used 4 wire Kelvin Connections, so that I could eliminate test lead impedance effects from my measurements.

The spade lugs, banana plugs, and bare speaker wire all tested at about 0.008 ohms per connection. Depending on the construction of the binding post I used, I got slightly better performance from one than the other. (One post had fairly large flat areas for contacting the spade lugs and bare wire, the other was not as good in this area. Even the better binding post was only better by slightly less than 0.001 ohm.)

The tinned hooked speaker wire first tested as about 0.014 ohms. I then removed the hooked wire end, and clamped it in a vise to squish the end a bit. After this treatment, I was getting about 0.009 ohms.

I also tested some pin connectors. I got about 0.012 to 0.013 ohms depending on the binding post I used.

My conclusion is:

If you have the room to make connections with bare speaker wire, go ahead and make them and be happy.

If you want to use banana plugs or spade lugs, apply them carefully to the wire, being sure to get a good crimp. Your performance will be right at the same level as no connector at all.

If you are going to tin the wire with solder, clean the wire well afterwards, as the flux used in soldering is not conductive, and "Smash" the wire end a bit to maximize contact area.

The pin connectors would be my last choice. Even here, assuming a 8 ohm speaker, a 0.013 ohm connector impedance is only .1625% of the speaker impedance. I doubt anyone could hear this in a blind comparison.

In the end, I believe any of the connection methods above are acceptable for speakers with impedances ranging from 4 to 8 ohms. I doubt the ability of individuals to hear the difference between the connector types, and the absence of a connector.

So, who's going to be the first to flame me, and tell me I've got a severe case of rectal cranium?