Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater QS8 Question re banana plugs

I just got my QS8's in, but I have a mounting problem. The banana plugs stick out further than the wall bracket. This causes the speaker to rest on the plug and aim slightly upwards. Neither is acceptable. Any advice beyond going with bare wire or spades? Seems strange that a surround would not have more room for the plugs, as they use very good banana plugs on the QS8.

Unless you plan to unplug them frequently, just go with bare wire. I have two sets of QS8, one on the wall using bare wires and one set on stands using banana plugs.

If you do plan on needing to swap them (and would rather keep using the banana plugs) I suppose moving them to stands would work too. I've personally got my QS8s on stands with bare wire on the speaker and banana plugs on my amp. I seem to need to monkey (get it?!) with my source more than my speaker connections.

Spade lugs would work great and would provide plenty of clearance! Personally I use bare wire going into my QS surrounds.

Alright, bare wire it is. Axiom should reposition the plugs so you can use terminated wire more easily. I have some good pre-terminated wire (Transparent Audio) and cutting it is not a wise option. With such quality lugs on the speaker I'm shocked this is an issue and thankful I did not run the wires yet in my new room. I'll make do, and look forward to hearing it all hooked up.
Thanks for the input.

Bare wire will work great with the QS8's. No need to get fixated on using Banana plugs because the only benefit they will provide is the convenience of disconnecting and hooking them back up. Since they are going on wall it is unlikely you will be moving them around too much.

Banana plugs do not offer any sound quality advantages over spades and bare wire so in the end nothing to be worried about :).

Hope you enjoy your QS8's!

Cheers,

I just hooked mine up as well (bare wire)wall mounted. They totally completed my HT experience! I just watched House of Flying Daggers and it sounded Awesome!

This has been this way for as long as I can remember, bare wire is the only way to go.

Not to be a pain, but I can't agree with you on the bare wire issue. While there is much BS in the wire industry, copper - no matter how pure - does corrode over time when exposed to air. That is why oxygen-free copper is so heavily advertised in audio wire. Corrosion at the contact point – exposed wire – can impact the connection and resulting sound quality, especially given how small the contact points are with a bare wire to binding post contact. Beyond the looks, that is why all good wire generally comes pre-terminated with gold plated contacts and corrosion resistant solder. In fact, the binding post is even gold plated. Gold does not corrode, thus the benefit at the contact point. Plus, spades and bananas provide more surface area for the contact to better conduct electricity. It is not just that they are easier to remove – although that is a benefit as well. This is a minor issue in a surround, I guess, but again I ask, why put such a good 5-way gold-plated binding post on a speaker if bare wire is the only likely choice - which is what I'm assuming based on the feedback. (And I do appreciate all the feedback.) After spending all this money I guess I just hate to have obvious weak links for no reason.
I have never used Axiom before, and I am generally pleased with the physical quality of the product so far (have not hooked them up yet) but this sticks out as an odd execution of an otherwise well designed product. Just my two cents, I’m sure it will sound great with bare wire. And as was mentioned, spades may still be an option - I just don't have pre-terminated spades at the moment.
Thanks all.

Thing is, Zimm, not everyone uses the QS8s with the supplied T-brackets; Axiom also sells other brackets and stands that can be used with it which do allow the use of banana plugs. I'm not really sure how one could reconfigure the binding posts to allow the use of banana plugs with flush mounting on the wall.

I would also point out that with banana plugs there's an extra contact surface that could potentially introduce problems, so I suspect it's kind of a wash.

Kcarlie, the mounting option issue is a good one that I didn't consider. As far as a fix, really it would only require increasing the depth of the plug housing an inch. That's why I find it strange - the fix is so easy and wall mounting has to be nearly, if not more, common for surrounds that stand mounting.

Anyway, no big deal. When THX declines to certify my man-room I'll complain that Axiom made me use bare wire. Until then, and I'd guess I have some time, I'll focus on the sound.

Thanks

Bare wire actually creates the best contact with the terminal because it avoids making additional connection points which can fail. This would have a negative effect on sound quality. I have had speaker wire oxidize on me in the past (jacket turned yellow) and I did not notice any difference in sound quality then the speaker wire I have now which is also even a higher gauge.

Doc, I guess this won't be the first time two listeners had a difference of opinion as to what sounds better. What, next you going to tell me Guns N Roses' Appetite for Destruction was not the best album of the 90's?
No doubt bare wire is best; the first day. After that, it goes down as a matter of physics as corrosion occurs around the surface of each strand of exposed wire; while terminated wire, on the other hand does not change, or changes dramatically slower. And the additional contact points argument is curious to me. Yes, a banana has about 5 times the amount of surface area contact - providing a similar affect to increasing the gauge of the wire. But having more surface area does not create more likelihood of failure points. If you mean the contact between the plug and the wire, I would agree that a screw terminal in the plug is as prone to corrosion as at the speaker terminal. Good solder is the key there. Even with screw downs, however, you gain the increase in surface area via spade or banana, which is my general preference.
Anyway, the horse called and asked that I stop beating him, so I'll move on. Thanks for the input. Hope to report back with a functioning system soon.

ahhh hum bug, I use old lamp chord that has plenty of corrosion, and in blind AB tests you will not be able to tell the difference between that and wire costing thousands...

I am not arguing what termination sounds better but the fact they will all sound the same :).

If the OP is dead set on connecting his QS speakers with banana plugs he can order this, or a similar recessed speaker binding plate from Parts Express for use as a recessed wall plate...that's exactly what I did whenever I built our room thinking it would make for a much cleaner looking installation but whenever I started fumbling around with trying to connect the banana plug installed jumper wires to the QS8's with the less than ideal working space,(T bracket, wall and speaker) I was working with I ditched that idea and went bare wire to speaker binding post, it worked out great and after the install nobody noticed the difference.
If a soldered speaker wire/banana plug to speaker binding post is what he's looking for, remove the two recessed speaker plate's binding post and use the holes in the plate as a pass-thru for that connection ... you may need to enlarge the holes or make one hole.



Parts Express Speaker Plates

So what exactly prevents the corrosion from happening to the bare wire screwed into the banana plug? As I see it, you're just moving the connection back a few inches.

That said, I use bananas on the receiver end of all of my cables and on the speaker ends of the towers.

Sir Quack, I must disagree. I have done that test and can tell you the difference b/w lamp cord and Transparent wire and Monster Z Series, etc., is real, but small. (Bare wire is a different issue - after spending much hard earned $, I fear the weak link of corrosion in the humidity drenched south. Heck, even peoploe corrode down here!)
But I spent a lot of time comparing wires and audible differences are there, even on my lower end system. Transparent was best for my price range, the Monster Z had great bass but had less clarity on the highs, lamp cord was weaker on both. I have also listed on a $100K+ setup, and found some of the cheaper (very relative term!) wire was better (to me) than some of the more expensive stuff. This is a case of severe diminishing marginal returns - the next $100 brings far fewer changes than the first $100. It could be all smoke and mirrors, but I believe the efforts made (in the little black boxes added to high end wire) to control known anomalies in analog signals when transmitted over copper over a set distance have an impact. There is no dispute the signal changes, look at any signal chart on the many studies of the issue. The question is does that change matter to you and is the impact good or not. That is up to the listener. Most studios seem to prefer special wire. If you don't notice a difference in your room, congrats. For me, it was worth the insane, but possible, price of admission to get some tech voodoo rubbed on my wire. (That sounds odd... :o)

Calvin, as I understand it, Non-corrosive solder. Prevents air and does not corrode on its own. Thus, pre-terminated wire has a significant advantage as there is no oxygen in the wire, and the connection is airtight. Otherwise, correct, the only benefit is the increased surface area of the contact points and ease of use.

I know I shouldn't get into this but, do you have a lab to test for these differences or is it the way these wires sound to your ears. I'm just curious.
Also if the wire does corrode at what rate and when can you hear the difference?

Without reading everything here since I am short on time and trying to go home... Bare wire is better than connecting to a banana plug! There, I said it. I love banana plugs for the "look" and each of disconnecting and reconnecting, but every time you make a connection, you run the risk of some level of signal degradation. Will you hear it? Most likely not, but it has been argued time and time again that bare wire offers the best connection from a signal point of view. Of course, you can get some really crappy wire and run into corrosion, but if you used that same wire and connected it to a banana plug, you'd still have crappy corroding wire.

There are test out there. As I have to leave the computer, I would take teeh cheap way out and say go to Transparent Audio's website. (there are others, I just recall that one was good.) I think they have some of that there. But I have over the years read studies by independant folk that show the changes to the signal over a run of copper. It may be my logic trumping my ears, but it seemed to back the audible differece. Time? I don't know. I figure it must occur at the electron level long before I see it, but that aint exactly scince. Sorry to open a can of worms I can't close.
Gotta run, will check back and hopefully some pro will point out the error of my ways.

Gotta say, a manufacturer's website is not the best place to get objective info about how their stuff performs. (pot, kettle, black yadda yadda)

Also, the name's not Calvin... Although that's not usually one I get. Charlie's a lot more common.

Come on Calvin loosen up and come listen to my speaker wire

Oh, all right, Ray.

kcarlile made the best advantage about banana plugs, that is using them on the back of the receiver which for the most part are tight, confined, cluttered areas. In this case banana plugs have a distinct advantage in creating the best contact (especially with a 10 awg wire). For that application I have found no better banana plug then the locking type from blue jeans cable. But going to the speaker itself it really does not matter, I have even put bare 10 awg wire into the binding posts of my Axioms with no issues .

It's just been pointed out to me that my sig ends with --Calvin. That refers to the comic character from Calvin and Hobbes, the speaker of my quote. My name's Ken.

Ah! You might want to use double-quotes for the text then if it's a quote!

Ok, I'll bite. (insert Homer emoticon here)

I lived in Binghamton, NY for 25 years as Director of Acoustic Research at McIntosh Laboratory Inc. doing what I like best-- creating better sound. I initiated the loudspeaker line at McIntosh, developed many new concepts, received several patents and wrote several magazine articles.

Earlier, I was a senior engineer at the Sonotone Corporation, in Elmsford, NY. I designed several compact speaker systems and a wide variety of microphones.
I graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. with a degree in Electrical Engineering.
I am a life member in the AES and joined in 1960. Previously, I was a student member at RPI.

Who am I and what do I think about speaker wire?


Me

Zimm, welcome, but I have to call you for nonsense included in a couple of the posts. There's no solid evidence from properly controlled double-blind listening tests that any of the wire and cable stuff that we read from sellers who fall into the rip-off category(including Transparent Cable)exists in reality.

That was an interesting read Warrant. Nicely organized and documented. The irony is that in my field (Enterprise networking) I have to constantly remind people that using cheap cables will absolutely kill performance. Of course it's a different problem altogether but I find it ironic indeed.

Thanks for the link Warrant, it's an interesting read

Wow.... I have to bookmark that one and read it all the way through!!!

Mr. Russell's splendid article has of course been cited here probably dozens of times in the past few years as an aid to those who want to separate audio fact from fantasy.

Yeah, JohnK (I think) posted that link for me when I was making my speaker wire purcahse 12 months ago. Very informative stuff!

Now, THAT'S Funny!

But then again it may have been Randy (sirquack) who posted the link.

Which reminds me... just where did the name "sirquack" come from anyway?

But his friends call him Calvin

It is a long story, but basically one of my friends used to have an email account on hotmail using that name, when he stopped using it I took it over for a screen name. I've been thinking about changing it since it sounds like I'm a psycho.

Well heck Warrant, why didn't you tell me before I spent money on cables and got into this long conversation based on years of reading junk science? Thanks for the information. I still find it strange that corrosion would not impact the quality of the electrical connection, as was my original point, but I'm glad to know it. Does that mean that the cheap gold-plated tin they sell as speaker wire is just as good as solid copper wire? Given the price of copper on the market I did not think lamp cord actually had much copper in it and thus would cause audible issues.

Glad to be wrong on this, now I can return the wire I just bought from Axiom and get some tin lamp cord. Thanks for the info Warrant, I'm sure you have had to dispel the misunderstanding often.

At least they do now...

Right Calvin?

So Warrant is Mr Russell? I had no idea, what an honor to have him stop by now and then on our little Axiom forum. Mr. Russell, I have referred to your wire table for years, and have a link on my articles website page, hope that is ok with you..

http://porterplex.googlepages.com/links&articles

Is that what he meant? I thought that warrant had indicated in earlier posts that he was a relative newcomer to audio. I took it that the "who am I" format of the post was a playful way of bringing out Mr. Russell's qualifications.

Cool! welcome!

JohnK, thanks for the welcome. I apologize if the nonsense offended you. With all the science that goes into the thousands we spend on audio and video, it was not hard for me to believe a corroded old lamp cord may not compare to quality solid copper cable with circuits to “balance the loads,” etc., etc. Of course, my original question was simply whether or not I could use a banana plug on the QS8, but no matter at this point.

I always thought the k in kcarlile stood for Klein. Or sat down for Klein, since it's lowercase.

That's the way I perceived his statement also John.

I know you are being light-hearted here, but, still, given the attention to detail that most forum members exhibit, I am surprised that no one has yet pointed out that Appetite for Destruction came out in 1987.

Very good catch, JP!

Thanks HistorianBot!

Based on his statements about his career and location, that matches up with Mr. Russell, same town, same background. There are links on the Wire pages that take you back to the history of Mcintosh and Mr Russell (aka Warrant). I could be wrong, but not sure.

Medic8r, I may have to resign my login ID for that one. The wire debate I don't mind being corrected on - I see others have been led astray before me. Forgetting how old I am getting and putting that album in the wrong decade is truly unforgivable. Does it make any difference that it was better than most of the music in the '90s? I guess not. My apologies, and all are welcome to ignore my future posts based on that glaring error on my part. Thanks for the catch.

If it still bothers you that much not being able to use banana plugs, you can buy the QS8 stands here, find a similiar desisgn from another manufacturer that could support them or if you are really handy make some DIY stands. In that application you would have no issues with using the banana plugs with your QS8's.

...and finally.

After being publicly reprimanded for my belief in ferries, Big Foot and magic wires, I went to Home Depot and bought some cheap tin on a spool to temporarily run my QS8s. What do you know, they work - no copper needed. I ran a few scenes from Hancock and put a few heavy surround games of War hawk through them. While I have not done any critical listening yet, I can say I'm impressed that on the movie soundtrack they disappear and made my small theater seem a bit bigger than I anticipated. Yet, on War hawk they still exhibited pinpoint accuracy on circling jets and zipping missiles in the background. I formerly had Klipsch (CDT-3800-C) in-ceiling 8" surrounds in a bigger mixed-use room, and these are much more pleasing to the ear so far. I'm anxious to do some critical listing of Blu-Ray music and will report back. Then again, I turned in my ID for blowing the G&R reference, so maybe I'll post my experience somewhere else??? )

Due to the room set up stands are not an option for me, but thanks for the idea. I have recently come to learn that I can use an old extension cord from the garage and plug it right into the binding post, so I am off the banana-plug train. See, I can learn. Thanks for the help. I hope to have more challenging problems in the future.

Without beating the corpse of this horse too much further into a pulp, I am curious why there is a difference? Analog v. digital signals?

You can win your way back in by posting photos. People here really like photos!

NYET NEIN NAY STOY ARRET!
I AM NOT ROGER RUSSELL!

It was a "who am I" post in the style of a game show. FronT page Challenge for the Canucks here.

Hey Rodger is back

Ah, thanks for the tip. Once I get the QS8's wire run in a less-frat house manner, I will put up a few pics of my humble mancave/glorious home theater. I'll need them when I beg for help with SW positioning and reflection dampening anyway. I'll have to figure out how to post pics, but I'm sure that info is on the site. (Don't want to hijack the thread; yet again.)

Thread hijacking is what we do best

And sometimes thread high-jacking with slight title changes to help with confusion!

Thread hijacking? never heard of it, I think we all just have ADD, which is why we have a resident psychologist on the forum.

Very good to know. I have a few "daddy" issues I'd like to work out with all of you...

He's not a psychologist, he's a psychiatrist. Which means he won't listen to you, but he will give you drugs.

Zimm, just to beat a dead horse, I don't doubt that corrosion probably would play a part in your rather humid environment, but in many areas, it's not a concern. I disagree with you about the cable quality issue; as long as a cable has negligible impedance (which copper lamp cord of the appropriate gauge for the distance does), it's going to transport the signal reliably. No one has suggested using tin wire. That's a common chestnut by the cable aficionados around here...

Calvin's Common Cable Chestnuts.

Not to confuse things, but my understanding was that corrosion would be a problem but only if the wire was corroded when you hooked it up. The wire will corrode over time but only in the parts exposed to the air -- the part which actually makes contact normally stays shiny.

As to why cable quality makes a difference in enterprise networking, my 2 cents would be that (a) the distances are much longer, (b) the signals are digital and extremely high frequency, (c) the differences between cheap cables and crappy cables tend to be in termination and twist consistency, not in the wire itself.

Oh yeah, and (d) there are a bazillion cables so if 0.01% have problems you still spend half your life troubleshooting

Absolutely, no one suggested using tin. I raised the question in response to Warrant's detailed review of myths associated with expensive wire. I was just curious how far this goes. The spool of what I call "lamp cord" or "zip cord" that I bought at Home Depot last night for $.50/ft is, in fact, tin. I believe most cheap wire is. One side is copper plated, but both sides conduct via tin. Real copper is expensive. Is it the accepted view that "lamp cord" as used in this forum, is a reference to real copper wire? Not debating, just asking.
Lamp cord and zip cord are terms older than my experience as I have only been buying speaker wire since about '88 (and I don’t make lamps?). By then tin was taking over the bargain bins I had access to. And, dare I ask, what is the problem with tin? Not a sarcastic question, I'm really interested in this stuff and I've lost all my confidence in the myths I have bought into over the years...
By way of background, I actually began trusting the wire companies to some level based on years of setting up systems in cars, where interference and corrosion and other harsh environmental factors did make a huge difference. (I don’t want to debate that so please just ignore that invite to hijack if you think I dreamed that up.) Better cables made significant audible difference, especially in the low level lines where hiss, hum, and buzz, were common with cheap wire. Crossing power cords at 90 degrees helps, etc., etc. So believing some of the marketing hype of the wire companies was not so hard for me. This discussion has been eye opening. Thanks to all.

The difference has a lot to do with the higher bandwidth digital signal. Interference, crosstalk, and signal attenuation are a big issue when running at gigabit speeds, and the higher quality Cat-6 cables contain correctly-twisted pairs of conductors and use higher-quality connectors.

Even better!!

I don't fully appreciate the difference, but I won't divert the thread further. Thanks for the info.

This would be due to poor shielding in lesser cables and with automotives, you have a not so great AC generator that has questionable filtering capabilites at best, with lots of RF signals from the engine, which is why shielding is all the more important. For home use, the shielding of low level lines is still important but not as much. This leads to speaker cables which are not shielded at all, well most of them, because the signal to the speakers is a higher voltage and less susceptible to interference.

That explanation I actually understood. Thanks Jake[wash].

On a loosely related topic, for over a year I've been annoyed with the fact that the computer I built with a gigabit NIC would not connect at Gigabit speeds to my router... Since initially screwing around with it when I built the computer (1.5 years ago), I had since given up and stopped thinking about it.

However, I upgraded my router on Cyber Monday (to wireless N) and at that point it began to annoy me again that the computer still wasn't connecting at 1 gbps. Come to find out... the whole time the cable was at fault. It was an old POS Cat5 cable... grabbed a newer Cat6 cable yesterday and voila... 1GBPS connection. I realize this is not an issue of quality, but of spec, but still... After 1.5 years... DUH!

Jason

Zimm, what are you talking about? Tin is a metal with much higher electrical resistance than copper and as far as is known is never used in the electrical wire commonly bought for connecting speakers. It may be called by such generic names as "lamp cord", "power cord", "speaker wire","zip cord", etc. but in all cases it's better than 99.9% pure copper. My own usage has always been 16ga lamp cord connected directly to receiver and speaker terminals.

I remember one time I was setting up a bedroom set up and used an old extension cord for speaker wire, no joke.

I'm pretty sure that even the cheapest lamp cord is copper on both sides with one side tinned, but I can't imagine tin wires. Maybe you're seeing aluminum wire ? I didn't think that was still being used, but maybe I'm just out of touch.

Zimm, there is no such thing as Tin wiring at the Depot. Are you talking about Tin Coating? If so, that is just a coating over the copper to make it easy to keep polarity in line, it is still 99+% copper as JohnK mentions.

He may mean aluminum... Either way, copper or aluminum "lamp cord" would be fine if the gauge was right.

Boy, I can stir some stuff up! I'm not a metallurgist (surprise), but I think copper is brownish. One side of this stuff is silver - and I'm quite sure it aint real silver. I thought that was tin, or some other much cheaper metal of the silver-ish family. Aluminum seems possible, but I would think the stiffness of aluminum would cause cracking (again, not a metallurgist but I have welded aluminum, and I slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night, and aluminum is pretty stiff, including the wire). Perhaps lead with a tin veneer to make it shiny? Either way, if it is copper, it is a strange color all the way through – tricked me, sorry to offend all those lamp cord fans. If it is not, and the other side is copper (b/c it is brownish), does it matter. I guess not, sounds like just about any conductive piece of metal (or wood, I guess) works without audible degradation by the group's experience. Tonight I was going to try connecting the speakers but running the signal through my 7 year old, but perhaps that is for another thread.

I'll pull the spool out of the trash and see if I can find a metal content to end the mystery. But I've dealt with a lot of copper wire (and aluminum wire) on the industrial side, so I'm pretty sure this stuff is not copper, but I would not want to disagree with those who have much more experience with silver copper wire. I would point out that the HDepot website just says this stuff is “copper and silver colored wire”. Not 99% pure copper as some have surmised. (Confirm for yourself: http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stor...ctId=100560760)

Perhaps all of this is a reason to get ripped off at BB and get some Monster cable - at least I feel confident it is copper (even ifs in a smaller diameter than they try to sell it as). Wow, what a long road this has become.

So don't buy the one with a silver colored side. I happen to know that home depot sells two stranded copper wire of various gauges. Yeesh.

Zimm:
Don't feed the Monster. Check out something like this at Monoprice, a very well-liked and reliable cable and wire supplier!

Look, I have my wire so I'm not pushing some agenda. This is all for discussion purposes as so many quickly said lamp cord is the best. Let's be clear, the only wire at that Home Depot websight says is copper, not copper colored, is the name brand name speaker wire by the companies that rip you off. I was looking for the often cited "cheap lamp cord" and what I got aint copper. Again, I don't care, I have wire on order that is copper. Just saying, all you lamp cord fans may want to tell the uninformed like me that the cheap wire you are talking about is not the stuff the sales guy at HD will call lamp cord. Its the stuff from AR and Monster and the other evil doers. Just saying. "Yeesh", exactly.

Thank you Mark. That is helpful information. I have also had good luck with HDMI and optics at BlueJeanscable.com (it think that is right) for anyone looking for a deal on non-monster (pun intended) wire. Never knew I could excite so many people with lamp cord.