Crimp-On BFA banana plugs - where to buy with crimping tool?

[Benedict_Arnold]

Will be needed for Chord Odyssey 4 speaker cable and Cyrus amps.

I'm in Houston, Texas, and finding a proper hifi shop to re-terminate the cables here is like trying to find astronauts in Arbroath...

 

[ChrisIRL]

Will be needed for Chord Odyssey 4 speaker cable and Cyrus amps.

I'm in Houston, Texas, and finding a proper hifi shop to re-terminate the cables here is like trying to find astronauts in Arbroath...

RobertRichie hifi are authorised Chord cable dealers and may be able to help you out. They are only 12 miles from Arbroath.....

 

[Al ears]

Will be needed for Chord Odyssey 4 speaker cable and Cyrus amps.

I'm in Houston, Texas, and finding a proper hifi shop to re-terminate the cables here is like trying to find astronauts in Arbroath...

RobertRichie hifi are authorised Chord cable dealers and may be able to help you out. They are only 12 miles from Arbroath.....

🙂 But a wee bit further away from Houston.....

To Benedict Arnold I would say better to solder them on or, indeed, use bare wires. If you fancy having a go yourself most hardware stores sell crimping tools. However, don't most of these plugs come with small 'grub' screws to secure the cable?

PS Did you buy those A6's?????

 

[ChrisIRL]

Will be needed for Chord Odyssey 4 speaker cable and Cyrus amps.

I'm in Houston, Texas, and finding a proper hifi shop to re-terminate the cables here is like trying to find astronauts in Arbroath...

RobertRichie hifi are authorised Chord cable dealers and may be able to help you out. They are only 12 miles from Arbroath.....

🙂 But a wee bit further away from Houston.....

Forum humour never was my strong point 🙂

At least he got a bump.

 

[Al ears]

Will be needed for Chord Odyssey 4 speaker cable and Cyrus amps.

I'm in Houston, Texas, and finding a proper hifi shop to re-terminate the cables here is like trying to find astronauts in Arbroath...

RobertRichie hifi are authorised Chord cable dealers and may be able to help you out. They are only 12 miles from Arbroath.....

🙂 But a wee bit further away from Houston.....

Forum humour never was my strong point 🙂

At least he got a bump.

And probably a laugh....

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Used to live in Aberdeen, never needed to go further than Holburn Hifi (highly recommended BTW).

Last time I was in Arbroath, on my Ducati, some drunk tart stormed out into the middle of the street and threw a litre cider bottle at me.

Being a Scot, she made sure it was empty first, and no doubt she probably tried to get her 10p back on the remains of the bottle.
Lovely place.

 

[chebby]

Last time I was in Arbroath, on my Ducati, some drunk tart stormed out into the middle of the street and threw a litre cider bottle at me.

Maybe next time you should pay her before leaving.

 

[Al ears]

Last time I was in Arbroath, on my Ducati, some drunk tart stormed out into the middle of the street and threw a litre cider bottle at me.

Maybe next time you should pay her before leaving.

Ouch!

Do I take it you are in the oil-business then Benedict_Arnold?

As far as I am aware there are only 2 good things to come out of Arbroath:-

The main road and smokies (and I'm not too sure about the smokies). 🙂

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Subsea pipelines.

Left Aberfreeze in 2000 during the last tumble in the oil price.

Had to go back in 2007 when my US work permit ran out, waiting for 'er indoors to make an honest man of me, tehn for the green card to come back. I was immediately struck by the loss of so many shops on Union Street (even Bruce Miller's closed down), replaced by charity shops, cheap nasty boozers and estate agents. And if you read the restaurant reviews by the silly wee girl who writes for the Evening Express, going out for dinner in Aberdeen these days means a burger in a pub. A far cry from when I moved there in 1990, and there was plenty of money about.

Do I miss Aberdeen? Yeas, like I miss my rotten, broken wisdom teeth.

Aberdeenshire's nice in the summer when you can get out into the country on a fast motorcycle with little or no chance of getting pulled over.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

To Benedict Arnold I would say better to solder them on or, indeed, use bare wires. If you fancy having a go yourself most hardware stores sell crimping tools. However, don't most of these plugs come with small 'grub' screws to secure the cable?

PS Did you buy those A6's?????

I always thought soldering would be better, but then someone pointed out to me that if you spend a hundred quid a foot on the cables, fifty quid each on the banana plugs, then bridge the huge gap between the cable cores and the insides of the plugs with solder bought from B&Q for under a fiver, what's the point of spending all that money on cables and plugs?

Most banana plugs aren't intimate enough of a fit onto speaker wires to avoid a huge wodge of solder in the conduction path.

Screws can come loose.

Bare wire to terminals is probably best, but it's a mess, and again, the wires can (and do) come loose over time. Which is why banana plugs (or spades or whatever connectors you use) came into use in the first place.

Crimped on bananas don't have screws to come loose and avoid that solder.

Anyway, having now started yet another round of what speaker cable / what plug / is butter really better than margarine, I'll get back to work.

 

[Al ears]

Subsea pipelines.

Left Aberfreeze in 2000 during the last tumble in the oil price.

Had to go back in 2007 when my US work permit ran out, waiting for 'er indoors to make an honest man of me, tehn for the green card to come back. I was immediately struck by the loss of so many shops on Union Street (even Bruce Miller's closed down), replaced by charity shops, cheap nasty boozers and estate agents. And if you read the restaurant reviews by the silly wee girl who writes for the Evening Express, going out for dinner in Aberdeen these days means a burger in a pub. A far cry from when I moved there in 1990, and there was plenty of money about.

Do I miss Aberdeen? Yeas, like I miss my rotten, broken wisdom teeth.

Aberdeenshire's nice in the summer when you can get out into the country on a fast motorcycle with little or no chance of getting pulled over.

Gotcha,

Wellsite Geologist here, currently still employed..... just.

Don't get into Aberdeen centre much these days. Generally just see the airport and a hotel, however last time I was in it did look decidedly shut.

Regards your banana plugs I feel I should mention that I have never had any grub-screws work loose before. If your worried then you could try crimping yourself (or indeed buy pre-terminated cables) or even Superglue the grub screws 🙂

PS I have never used cheap solder but take the point. Seriously, if you take that to the extreme you'd use bare wires and save yourself a good amount on phono plugs 🙂

If bare wires work loose there is something seriously wrong with your binding-posts.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Found, finally, some reasonably good banana plugs by Seweel that have double grub screws, a dozen should arrive today.

Linkey won't posty but look on amazon.com (not .co.uk) for Sewell Direct SW-29751-6 if you're interested.

I should explain that the speaker cables in question are Chord Odyssey 4, 30 quid or so a foot and so not exactly doorbell wire in the cost equation. With my Cyrus kit (which I sold before I left the UK because I needed the cash) I had to use BFE banana plugs at the amp ends, had a chice which to use at the speaker ends (bi-wired and bi-amped), so went with the BFE banana plugs just for simplicity.

However, the BFE plugs are really easy to snap off (as I've proven to myself a few times) when handing stuff for the inevitable re-arrangements / new tweaks routine, and the speakers and AV receiver I'm currently using accept regular banana plugs.

Bare wires would be great but not for now. Knowing my luck my 4-metre Odyssey 4 cables would be four foot Odyssey 4 cables by Christmas...

Note to WHF journos: how about a review of how to terminate speaker wires and / or of the plugs out there? Am I alone in thinking spending 30 or even 100 quid a foot on speaker cables won't matter a jot if you don't use decent terminations?

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Sewel Siverback gold plated off Amazon.com (not .co.uk) arrived today.

Regular banana plugs this time as I haven't gotten any new Cyrus gear (yet).

Look good, sturdy, with well-sprung "bananas", metal screw-on sleeves and double grub screws. They even included a little screwdriver in the 12-pack.

Happy bunny at last.