Oxidation and the importance of well terminated speaker cables...

I've been having a lot of trouble recently with the sound of my system going off.

After much mucking about I finally traced it to oxidation of the cheap spades on my Van Damme Hifi speaker cable.

At 1st I went bare back but I found the sound would go off again after a few days. I didn't expect this as I thought oxidation of bare cable would take much longer.

Anyway, I finally bit the bullet and bought some red copper Gaofei spades from ebay, some silver plated crimp tubes and a crimping tool.

I put it all together and covered the open parts of the spade with heatshrink and voila, lovely sounds and so far it hasn't gone off!

I'm not sure why the banana plugs at the speaker end haven't also gone off but maybe they were better attached when I bought the cable.

Just thought I'd share my findings in case anyone else has experienced oxidation or just to stimulate some discussion :)

Hi Tony, thanks.

When you say the sound would go off with bare wire, can you elaborate please :)

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Originally Posted by Intenso

I've been having a lot of trouble recently with the sound of my system going off.

After much mucking about I finally traced it to oxidation of the cheap spades on my Van Damme Hifi speaker cable.

At 1st I went bare back but I found the sound would go off again after a few days. I didn't expect this as I thought oxidation of bare cable would take much longer.

Anyway, I finally bit the bullet and bought some red copper Gaofei spades from ebay, some silver plated crimp tubes and a crimping tool.

I put it all together and covered the open parts of the spade with heatshrink and voila, lovely sounds and so far it hasn't gone off!

I'm not sure why the banana plugs at the speaker end haven't also gone off but maybe they were better attached when I bought the cable.

Just thought I'd share my findings in case anyone else has experienced oxidation or just to stimulate some discussion :)

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I have often found the opposite to be true. When I use unterminated cable I typical apply a little solder to the cable tips to stop the cable fraying/unravelling. When I tighten the screws on the cable the screws typically cut through the oxidised top surface and exposes some fresh cable under the pressure applied.

Often though, I use terminated speaker cable just for the convenience of connecting cables.

Geoff

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Originally Posted by RobbieGong

Hi Tony, thanks.

When you say the sound would go off with bare wire, can you elaborate please :)

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What I meant was that when I cut the ends to reveal some fresh cable and then connect using the bare ends it would sound great for a day or two and then the sound would go a little dull.

Terminating the ends the way I described has resulted in the sound not going a little dull.

I guess I'm just surprised that a newly cut bare wire would go off so quick but hey ho nothing surprises me in this game...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Intenso

What I meant was that when I cut the ends to reveal some fresh cable and then connect using the bare ends it would sound great for a day or two and then the sound would go a little dull.

Terminating the ends the way I described has resulted in the sound not going a little dull.

I guess I'm just surprised that a newly cut bare wire would go off so quick but hey ho nothing surprises me in this game...

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Interesting, I've never heard of that before :scratch:

Bare wire is prefered by some as it's a direct connection which should be good.

Be interesting to fond out if anyone else has had the same experience

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Intenso

What I meant was that when I cut the ends to reveal some fresh cable and then connect using the bare ends it would sound great for a day or two and then the sound would go a little dull.

Terminating the ends the way I described has resulted in the sound not going a little dull.

I guess I'm just surprised that a newly cut bare wire would go off so quick but hey ho nothing surprises me in this game...

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Key areas for removing contacts altogether are where voltage and current are low. Both volume controls and signal switching as example
can be contact-less

Ideally contact-less methods of audio signal transfer, where ever possible should be used. Speaker binding posts are very convenient
but really should be soldered end to end- if we can overcome the inconvenience barrier.

Years ago, I had the usual OFC Monster Cable on my speakers, it was the best available at that time, before the cable market exploded. And I also soldered the tip to prevent fraying, and cranked down on the 5 way binding posts of my then Adcom 555 amp.

Hearing the losses you describe, I kept cranking down on the terminals until I finally broke them off! After a few years of retightening. So, I soldered the speaker wire directly to the amp! It worked so well i soldered the other side to the amp as well! No more issues, for 10 years I never had to fret with that end of the wire. But, the speaker end I had less trouble with for some reason.

Today, I also got those red copper spades from eBay and used a copper tube to crimp and solder the wire before adding the spades and the shrink tubing to pretty it up. These big red copper spades work wonders under the big wing nut speaker terminals on the Krell, and were fitted with those expensive banana lugs on the speaker end, which I have not changed. These bananas expand and lock themselves in the hole, and make a very good connection it would seem. Some expensive Legacy speaker wires the gent included in the sale of the Legacy speakers, they were much better than the wires I was using, so I’ve stayed with them.

Russell

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Originally Posted by alphaGT

I also got those red copper spades from eBay and used a copper tube to crimp and solder the wire before adding the spades and the shrink tubing to pretty it up.Russell

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I never soldered the tip but as the rest is gas tight I'm hoping any oxidation will be minimal.

I'd love to try some upmarket cable but as I need 10m a channel my options are limited...

cant say ive had that effect. cable shouldnt oxidize that quick i wouldn't have thought.

IME if you use bare speaker cable then it does oxidise over time (months not days) and stripping it back to fresh adds a bit of leading edge and sparkle back to the sound.


So agree there is an effect but can't see it happening in days. Maybe it depends how oxygen-free the copper wire is?