Good Connections Vs. Cheap Parts

Good connections have long been a problem on loudspeakers. Most speakers in the past used a push-on tab style termination. It was and still is a decent termination for most applications. It has a few drawbacks though, the surface area of the contact points between the male tab and the female push-on aren’t that great. Once the push-on tab loosens up, the connection gets worse and comes off easily. The solder hole in the terminal doesn’t allow for oversized lead in wire so high current can be a problem.

Figure 1

Professional speakers have long used binding posts for terminations. These were done in two main styles, twist-down caps or spring-loaded caps. The twist-down caps provide better contact area but can loosen up in high vibration applications. The spring-loaded caps offer a more secure termination but lose surface area of the contact points.

The lack of surface area can be made up a bit if high conductive material is used like a high copper content brass, or solid copper. These high quality terminals are still made by esoteric manufacturers, but you won’t find these terminals on today’s mass marketed products.

Too Much Power & Too Much Throw

The whole point of the terminals in the past was to have an anchor point on the frame for the lead-in wire to attach coming from the cone. This system works great up to about 1.5 inches of throw. The lead wire doesn’t have to move too far to cause lead slap and the wire/terminal combination can carry sufficient current to supply the voice coil.

When the throw goes past about 1.5 inches, things get more interesting. The old system breaks down, lead wires fry and slap about annoyingly. What if the lead wires weren’t a concern anymore, what if you didn’t have to anchor them to anything, what if you didn’t have to stretch them across the cone to terminal gap? Then you could throw out the old system and start from scratch. This gets them out of the way and lets us double or quadruple the amount of wires we run without worrying about slapping sounds. So now we don’t have to jump across anything, we can put any termination we want.

The best place to start in finding a new termination is looking for the best termination. We consulted metallurgists, and found that a direct copper to copper connection was best. Okay…so,

Where’s The Copper?

There is nothing better than a twisted, mechanical, copper to copper connection.

[Left: Twisted wires] [Right: Wires locked with wire nut]

Next best would be a crimp connection if a solid copper crimp is used.

[Top: Copper Crimp] [Bottom: Finished with heat shrink tubing]

NOT A WIRE NUT

Lower on the list is soldered joints because solder is not very conductive, 7-15% conductive compared to copper.

Very low on the list is connections with spring-loaded connectors if high quality material is used. (See Figure 1) The problem is that high quality material is not used. The binding posts terminals available today are dirt cheap in cost and quality. They actually stick to magnets!!! (Remember, copper is not magnetic.) Where is the copper in these things?

Like almost all things made today, manufacturers cut quality in favor of shinny coatings. We don’t see to many voice coils being made out of steel, so why use it as a connector??? Why do all other manufacturers use it? Because they are very cheap, about 20 cents a piece. Because they don’t think it really matters anyway, especially when considering all the other cheap stuff they use on the other parts of the speaker. And because they think your stupid; shiny chrome makes your brain short circuit and makes you hand over your wallet. Shiny chrome when used in conjunction with bikini models is particularly effective in inducing brain deficit disorder and keeps most of these manufacturers in business, not that they actually manufacture anything.

Here’s The Copper?

Our system does away with the old lead wire pitfalls, and does away with the extra connection of terminals. We have 12 gauge wire coming right off the speaker. This allows you to make secure connections with the best conductivity, copper to copper. You can use wire nuts on the twisted wire just like building codes require, this is one of the best methods. Wire nuts are available in all hardware stores for any wire gauge combination you can come up with. They don’t vibrate loose, and can be changed in seconds. Copper crimp connectors are good to use, as well as copper male to female quick connects. The connection can be dressed up even further by using heat shrink tubing over the connection.

The Best Connection

Direct connection is much more expensive to do, we pay much more than 20 cents for the wire, and the It takes more labor. We have far more cost in our laminated lead wire system, but it represents one more attention to detail that we feel is vitally important. There are few products left in the world in which everything is done for performance, not cost cutting, we want to be one of those pursuing performance. This means doing things the best way, whatever it costs.