Banana plugs are connectors that can be attached to the ends of speaker wire. There are many excellent advantages for having banana plugs. These benefits will allow you to understand banana plugs and what purposes they serve for terminating speaker cable.
One of the biggest benefits of using banana plugs over simple bare copper wire is the convenience that they deliver when hooking up the speaker system. Bare wire causes you to spend added time with connecting your speaker system and they can also cause problems such as stray wire shorting the audio equipment. It gets to be an inconvenience if you need to cautiously put in and connect the bare wire two times for every speaker. By having banana plugs attached with the ends of the speaker wire, all you need to do is plug in the wire exactly like you would with any other cable. This can be done in a few seconds.
Once bare wire has corroded you can notice the sound from the channel begin to crack or become spotty. Banana plugs get rid of this issue since they're corrosion resistant. Since most banana plugs are gold-plated, the copper is protected so you'll not need to be concerned about the negative difficulties that exposed copper wire may bring.
Essentially the most obvious benefit that banana plugs provide is that they give you a professional looking install to your speaker system. Oftentimes where just bare speaker wire is used, the result is sloppy - particularly if they are used with banana wall plates. So if you want to have a nicer looking result to the install your speaker system, you should consider banana plugs.
Banana plugs don't enhance the general performance of the audio. Just like any copper, even a coat hanger can send out an audio signal. Nonetheless, without having banana plugs, you have the chance of the uncovered wire corroding and lowering the audio quality. This may require you to cut off the weakened ends of the speaker wire and re-install in order to produce clear audio from your speakers.
The greatest dilemma with using bare wire instead is the probability of stray wire cross terminating that can harm your entire system.
I recommend obtaining screw-type banana plugs since they're really simple to put in. No soldering is required with screw-type banana plugs.. You simply insert the bare wire into the bottom or the side of the plug and screw the bottom portion of the banana plug snugly towards the bare wire.
On the whole, banana plugs are just an awesome way to safeguard and add quality to your installation also as convenience. Considering they are also found really cheap online, they are definitely an essential purchase.