Thanks everyone for the responses. I'll stick with the bare wire - it's certainly the easiest and best looking, and I don't intend to move the speakers around now that they are mounted.
I guess I always thought that gold plated connectors had a relevant function, like reducing oxidation? As you can see, I'm no expert on the topic. I do have good speaker cable and nice banana plugs everywhere else on my system, but it seems like the consensus here is the sonic advantage of fancy connectors is possibly another "snake oil" myth of the HT industry?
