Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions solder speaker tips vs. spades, bananas & the rest

How much signal quality is lost if I solder the speaker wire tips vs. using other connectors? I just assume save some money from buying connectors.

Good day to everyone

Hi intune,

Nada, zero, none at all. We are dealing with an amplified, high-level signal from your power amp or receiver, not a few microvolts from a moving-coil cartridge. So long as good contact is made by snugly tightening the binding post terminals, there is no electrical loss of any consequence.

Regards,

Thanks Alan.

I just soldered my wire. It wasn't fun stripping the 12 gauge wire without cutting a strand. I must have wasted 6 inches of wire. And I even used three different types of wire strippers. I know, what can one cut strand mean, but, unfortunately, I am one of those perfectionist types.

And to aggravate myself even more, I had a dirty iron tip (knew it) and had to remove and re-solder. I was to lazy to go out and get a new tip.

Best to everyone

Hi Intune,

Yes, it's a pain. And if you think doing speaker cables is bad, try doing shielded cables. I eventually just used a razor blade to strip the insulation instead of wire strippers, but you have to be very careful or you cut into the shield or the wire. The worst was soldering these screw-type heavy-duty weatherproof RF connectors for a VHF unit I was installing on a sailboat, with the whip antenna on the top of the mast (the cable ran down the inside of the mast and out at its base).

Regards,

A small pearing knife works really well for stripping wires if you're that anal. Hold the knife in your weaker hand and press the wire to the blade until it reaches the wire, rotate the wire down the length of the blade until you reach your beginning point. You won't cut a wire.

Good idea. Actually, I finished stripping the speaker wire with an xacto knife: I rotate the blade around half of the wire slowly (controlling the depth of the incision is very easy with an xacto blade; a magnifier helps) then turn the wire to the other half and rotate the blade in the same manner. Then I used a tool that grabs the covering below the cut and pulls the covering off above the cut (to substitute use pliers with little pressure above the cut). I then left the covering on after this a because I can twist the strands tightly by pinching the separated cover while pulling upwards.

By the way, having an xacto knife is useful because the blade is very thin and the tip is pointed. It can be snipped off at any point easily (protect your eyes when doing so) and therefore used as a screwdriver for extremely small screws (like the scews on the backcover of a watch or a cassette shell).

Well if you really want to be anal about it, and do a good job of stripping wire witout any fear of strand nics then get yourself a thermal wire stripper. They are the only way to go if you want to be sure of never having another wire nic again, and its done so fast. Only problem is they are expensive when compared to your garden varity wire strippers. I have used one for several months now, and I would never go back to a conventional wire stripper.

Hi,

Excellent tips from everyone. I like the paring knife suggestion because I've cut my hand in the past using razor blades. And John, where do you get a thermal stripper? How much do they cost?

Regards,

Alan,

The unit I have is a Teledyne TWC-1 this unit has temperature controller. I bought it for around USD $270.00 this model is a commercial grade unit so it is a little costly for home use. I do know that you can get cheaper units for light duty use, when I was researching to buy the unit I can across a number of cheaper hand held portable units around 75-100 dollars. If you search Google for thermal wire or thermal cable strippers you will find a good number of listings.

regards
John.

Forgive me as I've very little experience in home audio and am not very knowledgable in technical areas. Are you suggesting that cutting a few strands of a 14 or 12 gauge speaker wire makes some sort of difference? Could you explain? I, perhaps, could see this as mattering if each strand were shielded from all other strands, but they're not.