800 owners, are you using spades or bananas?

[tjarmstrong]

Previously I used banana terminals with my 802 Diamonds. Given the upward angle of the binding posts, I did not like how much downward force/stress is on the binding post when using heavy speaker cable. I suppose this could've been alleviated with a tall cable elevator. Since then I've upgraded my speaker cable and decided to use spades which will allow the cable to lay on the floor with a slight bend up towards the binding post. Of course this posed a new issue. With my fingers, I cannot manage to tighten the binding post nut enough to properly secure the spade. As soon as I think it is secure, I can grab the base of the spade and easily wiggle it loose. The 800 Diamond series have a smooth round chrome plated binding post nut with a thin rubber band for grip. They look nice but I don't find it very functional as I cannot grip this firmly enough to tighten properly. Other speakers I've used have either a wing style nut or hex head to allow tightening with a tool. The McIntosh hex head with the plastic tool is perfect IMO.
I really like 802 Diamonds but I'm not a fan of the binding posts and it's one of the few features kept on the D3 series. I'm currently having a metric hex head machined onto my binding post nuts.

[joey_v]

Nanas on my aq wels

[Kal Rubinson]

Originally Posted by tjarmstrong

I really like 802 Diamonds but I'm not a fan of the binding posts and it's one of the few features kept on the D3 series.

But the D3 posts are horizontal, so good bananas or, better, BFAs are fine.

[BrianT]

I'm using bananas, but using a thin cable Auditorium 23

Brian

[tjarmstrong]

Originally Posted by Kal Rubinson

But the D3 posts are horizontal, so good banana or, better, BFAs are fine.

To clarify, my issues are with the binding nuts which I thought were the same on the D3. Agreed, with the horizontal posts on the D3, that would work better with bananas which makes the nuts a non-issue.

[Kal Rubinson]

Originally Posted by tjarmstrong

To clarify, my issues are with the binding nuts which I thought were the same on the D3. Agreed, with the horizontal posts on the D3, that would work better with bananas which makes the nuts a non-issue.

True. The mushroom nuts worked OK for me but I often need to make quick changes and the mushroom nuts + spades are an impedance (sic).

[docmd2010]

I have WW gold eclipse SC and when i initially bought them the bananas were a little too thick for the binding posts on the 802d3. i quickly ordered spades from Ivan and changed them up. I also biwired my cables. The other benefit of having spades is i can easily convert them to full range cables. I.e. plug two reds into one binding post and two blacks into another one, you can't do this with bananas (unless you physically took the speaker wire and converted 4 bananas to 2, but that, to me, defeats the purpose of having a pristine, factory terminated speaker cable).

spades i felt provided a more secure connection. of note, i upgraded my AQ rocket 44 cables to gold series and the AQ SC's had bananas which fit very well in to the back of my 802.

[EfeTe]

Bi-wiring here although I've got bananas out my amp and spades onto the 805D's.

[KaliKid2013]

I have bananas on the 4 wires going to the terminals on the 802d3.

On the amp end, I have MC601 Mac monos, I use he 4 ohm binding posts.

So here, I have 2 wires going to each binding post, so I have 1 wire a spade to screw to the bottom of the binding post, and I have 1 wire with a banana, I pop that in the hole on the top of the binding post.

I find this easier than crowding 2 spades under the binding post, where space is sparse to begin with.

[Kal Rubinson]

My bi-wires terminate in shared connectors at the amp end.