Question about BJC speaker cables with locking banana plugs. Should the knurled collar just be hand tightened, or would you recommend using pliers?

In my opinion, not having used that equipement, you probably shouldn't be using pliers to tighten anything that doesn't have a liquid or gas flowing through it. I mean, you're not planning on using the banana plugs to hang the speakers from, right?

Hi bluray,

Carefully use pliers and don't overthighten. Instead, repeat the same opreation every few weeks a few times.

Shows what I know.

Hi Bluray,

Here is the tutorial for preparing the wire and assembling the plugs (pages 3 & 5).

One thing to make sure and even be more careful with is if you are using lower awg like 10 is do your best to get the cleanest strip on the wire as possible as shown on page 1. If not and you try to jam the fryed wire into the banana plug when you are assembling them, the tip of the banana plug will expand and you might find it difficult to initially insert them. With any 12 awg you probably won't run into that problem.

After you insert the banana plug, with your hands tightening the collar expands the tip which creates that secure connection. Tighten the collar to the point when you start to feel resistance and gently add a little more force. You don't want to overtighten. Defintely hand tighten and avoid pliers. Pliers will not only mark/damage the outside collar, but it could also damage the speaker inputs due to overtightening. I like these locking plugs from BJC much better than the widly popular banana plugs from Monoprice.

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/speaker/Speaker_cable_termination.pdf

I picked up a set of these from: http://www.speakerrepair.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=genem&Product_Code=BR10

I like them a lot better than the screw type. I'm such a sucker for this type of audio "jewelry"

Blu, unless you're extraordinarily strong, tightening the collars as much as possible by hand is safe. Pliers shouldn't be used.

Yeah. In my case they are pretty secure even without tightening the collar on my Axiom binding posts and those on my Denon. More secure than some other standard banana plugs I have used in the past that don't "lock".

Barely any strength at all is needed. You just want to screw the collar to the point where it feels tight and it will give that extra secure connection. I have never had to re-tighten them in the years that I have had them installed.