MIT is in the process of making something just like the Monster bananas. They should be out anytime now.

Word! I hope they improve the tightness of their i-CONN banana's as well.

Thanx for the 4-1-1

((boy dont i sound like a homie tonight - - I suppose ibetter lay off the old-E))

Banna plugs were developed for the pro audio industry for touring sound applications.
Banan plugs allowed very fast swapping out of blown power amplifiers during a show.
These have since been replaced with Neutrik Speakon connectors that are a quick release locking connector, and also allow for a biamp connection on a single plug per channel. Soon these too will become obsolete as tour sound is quickly moving towards powered speaker boxes instead of amplifier / speaker configurations.

yes, now if the consumer boys had just used the pro spacing between posts we could have used some of their toys but nooooooo

If Bananas are good enough for a 3000 watt amplifier pushing 8 drivers, I would think that they would work just fine for a $799 A/V Receiver.

I just LOVE that term!

It's already getting rather warm in southern California. If I don't have any pants handy, can I use shorts?

By the way, after seeing your three posts in a row, I was waiting for the fourth, only to be disappointed. You are a super member in my book, because even I have only ever written two posts in a row.



Really?

One of the most valuable jobs I ever had was disassembling surplus electronics vvveeerrryyy carefully to salvage what parts could be salvaged. This was 1967, and all the stuff was at least ten years old. Some even older. The benefit of the job was that I got to see how the highest-priced electronic equipment was laid out and constructed. Some of it was WWII surplus, so there was the added factor of lives depending on it working right. Almost all wiring that I do today is just a poor imitation of what I saw on that summer job.

Most test equipment that I ran across had banana jacks with the "professional" spacing referred to in another post. These were developed for fast connection and disconnection, but not for touring, rather for industrial usage. I think 1/4" phone connectors were used for most audio stuff, along with RCAs and the occasional Cinch connector (it's a cinch!), later Cinch-Jones, now gobbled up by some conglomerate.

Somewhere I have a book from the Bureau of Standards from 1918, showing radio test equipment (yes, pre-radio tube ! !), and I believe they used banana plugs and jacks....


They also allowed very fast disconnection of an amp if anyone tugged on the wire in any way, or tripped over it, something VERY likely to happen on the road.


You will still need to get the audio there, but it will be line level. I will bet that all of the connectors they use will have locking tabs; they will probably stay with Cannon (XLR) connectors unless there is some driving need to use a smaller connector. I would bet not, though, as these things have to be serviceable on the road, so smaller is not better.

This message was edited by Ernie Bornn-Gilman on 06/28/05 02:07 ET.

Actually, backstage on a production after the rig is up and the show is on, the cable management that reputable production crews exercise as well as the fact that unlike the 60's they don't let the flower children near the amp racks pretty much eliminates that problem. These kinds of productions are engineered long before they are loaded on a truck , and each venue and it's acoustic limitations, etc. are considered on each tour. Redundancy in terms of connections, as well as other aspects of a production are included such as backup wirelss recievers etc. That's what production companies do for a living, and it's all about efficiency, reliability, and transarency.


3 pin XLR connectors have become the defacto standard for mic. and line level (balanced) audio in the pro industry, However larger connectors carrying 24 / 48 and more channels are also used from a mix position to the stage.

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?

Not I, and in principal, I will agree with you. There is a lot of "snake oil" mis information or hype I refer to it as. You could even call it "Monster oil" that is discussed. But I think some of these discussions end up revealing some of the facts on these issues. Some people won't agree with others information, but just the same, the correct information has probably been posted somewhere in a thread. It's up to individuals to verify it or make sense of it. What's interesting about this thread is that it started off as a discussion on the audio performance of banana plugs which in my mind is a monster oil kind of issue, and mutated into a brief history of the banana plug followed by what is probably a more relevant item than auudio performance ( how reliable or practical is the connector physically).

I wanna hook up my speakers really really bad! 'cause if i add impedance to the speaker line I can brag that I'm getting more watts outta my amp !!!!!

Now my best - buy Yamaha puts out 150 watts by six !!! Yo Yo Yo that's awesome!!! Maybe I can get 200 watts outta it if a add some dirt to the connections !!! word!

J/K - thanx 4 the info bcf. :)

I believe LOWERING the impedence allows the amp to deliver more current....but then again maybe I'm wrong and just read it in Monster Cable lit.
tjg

Seems like that's the bottom line. How many super fi systems are we really putting in these days? Bananas are fine for in ceiling speakers, sats and subs...

In practice I only use bananas when the cables are just short enought that I can't get to the unit like I'd like. They are a lifesaver for quick hookups.

One post thought that bare wires to terminals presented an oxidation hazard. Come on, over how long a period of time?

Use the connector the system calls for. A blanket statement on the use of banana connectors is not accurate. You know how generalizations are...

Durrrr ... ohh yeah ... its adding impedance.... I was thinking arse backwards..... tooo many fireworks and yuenglings. Damn! now I hafta clean the mud outta my speaker terminals.

Ohh and monster cable also claims that optical digital is the best connection .... so dont rely on them for super info.... or me.

No need to flame you at all! Injection of measurements into a discussion of quality is a GOOD thing.

My concern had to do with long-term connection.

I'm going to think out loud here, and I do not know what the result will be, so let's just go....

Let's take that 0.008 ohms as a reference, assume for simplicity that the speaker and the connection add up to eight ohms and that the amp is putting out twenty watts. I have NO idea how realistic that wattage is, but what hell, I'm thinking out loud.

The 0.008 ohms is one thousandth of the impedance, so one thousandth of the power will be dissipated across that connection. This is 0.02 watts.

Well, I see that I was totally overblowing things when I was concerned about the connection. My thought was that power lost across the connection could affect the connection over time, but 0.02 watts probably would not be enough to slightly warm a butterfly's left nut, let alone heat a banana plug to the point where its spring tension could be affected.

So kudos to you, bcf1963, for introducing some facts to the discussion.

By the way, I have also heard that condition referred to as optical rectitis.

Another by the way, bcf1963, how is your friend thx1138?


Of course, you must understand that we can't give ANY credence to your measurements unless you tell us the actual model number.

Cracked me up when I had the thought to write that.

Also, kudos for even knowing what a Kelvin connection is. It has been so long that I don't even know if I am using the term correctly.

I LIKE banana connectors. I think they make the job look more professional, it's easier to swap connections, and it facilitates trouble shooting over the phone with a customer. There should be more than enough surface area contact to carry the max current. As far as the wire itself goes, Monster is largely full of s**t. Most of the specs they quote have no application over audio frequencies. Impedance differences in different cables is practically neglible and even a single strand of cat5 is plenty to handle the current density produced by a large amp. If you look at an integrated circuit you will see that much higher currents are carried by metal traces that have a much smaller cross section than a single strand of cat. If your wire needs to be that thick, shouldn't the metal trace on your output transistors be that thick as well? Just a thought.