Hello people!
My first post here. =)
I sent the following questions to Mr. Lejonklou via email, and he very kindly suggested that I post them on this forum, as some of you may have some interesting contributions. (Mr. Lejonklou also answered the questions himself (thank you very much again!), but I'll let him restate things in his own words....) The questions regard the speaker cable terminations (connectors) in an otherwise all-Linn system:
Q1: Does the material in a connector make a big difference, and (in particular) is silver-plating bad?
Q2: Are there any screw/crimp-on connectors that you're happy with? (Or must I learn how to solder?) =)
Q3: And, in more general terms, what exactly is the sound of a bad connector? Is it mostly a loss of detail and information? Or can the connector add its own distortion / imbalance?
Reasons for Asking:
My father just purchased a Unidisk SC + Chakra C5100 combo, and it's sounding shrill when orchestral & solo violins are playing. Before setting things up at home, I temporarily connected the components to my own Ninkas (in my cramped little apartment), and there they were very clean and pure. The only difference between my Dad's setup (on stereo) and mine lay in the cabling and connectors: passive biamping in both cases, but my Dad's system has K400 cables with Audioquest silver-plated (screw-compression) connectors on both ends, whereas I have (old, purchased-from-eBay) K20 cables with soldered connectors on one end and bare wire on the other. And of course the rooms are very different in size (though not in general furnishing)....
Could the Audioquest's silver-plating be responsible for the shrillness? Or does soldering / lack of soldering make a bigger difference? Or is it just a room effect? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as the new components sounded really nice in my apartment, and I'd like to get Mom & Dad's system sounding similarly.
Thank you very much!
What's a good speaker connector? / Is silver a bad idea?
Moderator: Staff
Hello again. =)
Well, since nobody's chimed in with any opinions, I've asked Mr. Lejonklou's permission to cut & paste his email response to my query. Here it is, verbatim:
BEGIN TEXT (RESPONSE FROM F. LEJONKLOU)
a. In general, screwed connections between speaker wire and connector sounds brighter than soldered connections. More treble, less bass, can be ok with the right connector, but in the long run it becomes a bit tiring IMO.
b. Silver on connectors or in cables always sound a bit brighter than the other common metals (brass/gold/nickel in connectors and copper in cables). Often the upper treble gets a bit out of synch with the rest of the music, so that it stands out and becomes irritating. I have picked out silver connectors, cables and even solder in several blind tests, so it’s not something people imagine because the metal looks shiny…
You have both of these things in your parents system and therefore my guess is that this makes most of the difference you hear.
The best screwed connector I have found is the rather cheap nickel plated Deltron type 579:
http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/93279.pdf
It doesn’t say anything about a screw there, but the ones I have ordered of the 579 and 580 (gold plated, about as good but not quite, I think) type have all had a screw under the plastic cover.
But on the Chakra amp, I wonder if it doesn’t get about as good by just screwing the copper into the WBT connectors at the back of the amp. I have not compared these two connection methods, but suspect the direct screwing of the cable is about as good. Something I have compared is screwing versus a well soldered connector and here the well soldered connector wins.
In the Ninka end, you need connectors so the easy and cheap way is to replace the silver ones with the above mentioned Deltron type and in the amp end just chop them off and screw the cable into the WBT amp connectors. Most probably an improvement.
The best solution is to properly solder Linn Knekt bananas in both ends. That connector is made of some kind of aluminium alloy and I have no idea why it sounds so good, but it is really superior to all other connectors I have tried. The quality of the soldering makes a big difference as well, about as big as the connector. The jump from crimped silver Audioquests to this is most likely something you will be surprised by.
I often do these kind of jobs, when people send me the cables rolled up in a box and I return them soldered. Postage will add a bit and it also takes a while before they are back in the system, but so far all customers have been delighted with the result.
END TEXT
As a comment on the above response: Mr. Lejonklou's description of a crimped silver connector's sound matches perfectly with what I've been hearing with my parents' SC + C5100 + Ninka system:
A) There is in fact more treble.
B) On some recordings, the heightened treble makes violin attacks and bowing techniques (Yay, Rachel Podger!!) more "exciting"...
C) ....However -- and this is a huge "however"-- the sound is very tiring to take for more than a few minutes, and most of the time it's unpleasant (i.e., "irritating") enough that you just want to turn the volume down (this effect takes place with female voices too).
To repeat from the original post: before setting the SC + C5100 up in my parents' house, I connected them to my own Ninkas using soldered connectors in place of the Audioquest crimp-on silvers -- and in that setup, the treble was clean, pure, and just gorgeous at even very high volumes. It's amazing the change (or rather, degradation) that a simple set of connectors can make, and I'm going to try the Deltron / bare wire setup next time I go home. (It'll be in a month or two, but I'll report back on the results.)
Hopefully someday I'll try out the "official" Lejonklou soldering service, but until then, many thanks again for suggesting an interim, low-cost Deltron solution. Cheers!
- C
Well, since nobody's chimed in with any opinions, I've asked Mr. Lejonklou's permission to cut & paste his email response to my query. Here it is, verbatim:
BEGIN TEXT (RESPONSE FROM F. LEJONKLOU)
a. In general, screwed connections between speaker wire and connector sounds brighter than soldered connections. More treble, less bass, can be ok with the right connector, but in the long run it becomes a bit tiring IMO.
b. Silver on connectors or in cables always sound a bit brighter than the other common metals (brass/gold/nickel in connectors and copper in cables). Often the upper treble gets a bit out of synch with the rest of the music, so that it stands out and becomes irritating. I have picked out silver connectors, cables and even solder in several blind tests, so it’s not something people imagine because the metal looks shiny…
You have both of these things in your parents system and therefore my guess is that this makes most of the difference you hear.
The best screwed connector I have found is the rather cheap nickel plated Deltron type 579:
http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/93279.pdf
It doesn’t say anything about a screw there, but the ones I have ordered of the 579 and 580 (gold plated, about as good but not quite, I think) type have all had a screw under the plastic cover.
But on the Chakra amp, I wonder if it doesn’t get about as good by just screwing the copper into the WBT connectors at the back of the amp. I have not compared these two connection methods, but suspect the direct screwing of the cable is about as good. Something I have compared is screwing versus a well soldered connector and here the well soldered connector wins.
In the Ninka end, you need connectors so the easy and cheap way is to replace the silver ones with the above mentioned Deltron type and in the amp end just chop them off and screw the cable into the WBT amp connectors. Most probably an improvement.
The best solution is to properly solder Linn Knekt bananas in both ends. That connector is made of some kind of aluminium alloy and I have no idea why it sounds so good, but it is really superior to all other connectors I have tried. The quality of the soldering makes a big difference as well, about as big as the connector. The jump from crimped silver Audioquests to this is most likely something you will be surprised by.
I often do these kind of jobs, when people send me the cables rolled up in a box and I return them soldered. Postage will add a bit and it also takes a while before they are back in the system, but so far all customers have been delighted with the result.
END TEXT
As a comment on the above response: Mr. Lejonklou's description of a crimped silver connector's sound matches perfectly with what I've been hearing with my parents' SC + C5100 + Ninka system:
A) There is in fact more treble.
B) On some recordings, the heightened treble makes violin attacks and bowing techniques (Yay, Rachel Podger!!) more "exciting"...
C) ....However -- and this is a huge "however"-- the sound is very tiring to take for more than a few minutes, and most of the time it's unpleasant (i.e., "irritating") enough that you just want to turn the volume down (this effect takes place with female voices too).
To repeat from the original post: before setting the SC + C5100 up in my parents' house, I connected them to my own Ninkas using soldered connectors in place of the Audioquest crimp-on silvers -- and in that setup, the treble was clean, pure, and just gorgeous at even very high volumes. It's amazing the change (or rather, degradation) that a simple set of connectors can make, and I'm going to try the Deltron / bare wire setup next time I go home. (It'll be in a month or two, but I'll report back on the results.)
Hopefully someday I'll try out the "official" Lejonklou soldering service, but until then, many thanks again for suggesting an interim, low-cost Deltron solution. Cheers!
- C
Knekt Banana Serial #?
Hello,
Would anyone know what the Linn serial number is for the Knekt banana plugs? I'm trying to purchase a set through my local dealer, but they're not sure what exactly "Knekt banana" refers to; hence a product or serial number (as in "Conn 014" for the power cord) would be nice.
Thank you very much!
- C
Would anyone know what the Linn serial number is for the Knekt banana plugs? I'm trying to purchase a set through my local dealer, but they're not sure what exactly "Knekt banana" refers to; hence a product or serial number (as in "Conn 014" for the power cord) would be nice.
Thank you very much!
- C
Re: Knekt Banana Serial #?
AFAIK it's "KNEKT B" for a black one and "KNEKT R" for a red one and "KNEKT 100" for a bag of 100 (50 black+50 red).Ceilidh wrote: Would anyone know what the Linn serial number is for the Knekt banana plugs?
Thank you!
Thank you very much, Sommerfee!
I'll relay the info to my dealer (and assuming I don't hopelessly screw up the soldering job, I'll report back on how things sound relative to the Audioquest silvers). Please have a good week!
-C
P.S. -- just out of curiosity, would you be the "Axel Sommerfeldt" who posts on the Topica list? If so, I've really enjoyed your contributions there!
I'll relay the info to my dealer (and assuming I don't hopelessly screw up the soldering job, I'll report back on how things sound relative to the Audioquest silvers). Please have a good week!
-C
P.S. -- just out of curiosity, would you be the "Axel Sommerfeldt" who posts on the Topica list? If so, I've really enjoyed your contributions there!
Re: Thank you!
Yes, it's me. Since my Unix account in the company I was working for was named after the first 8 letters of my surname (="sommerfe") and in German this sounds like "Sommerfee" (=Summer Fairy) I use that as my account name here (and other internet forums).Ceilidh wrote: P.S. -- just out of curiosity, would you be the "Axel Sommerfeldt" who posts on the Topica list?
Thanks for the flowers, I always try my very bestIf so, I've really enjoyed your contributions there!
Happy soldering and please report!
Axel
P.S.: To get on-topic again: I always did the best experiences with Linn cables and Linn connectors, too. And I can recommend the solder wire from Fredrik!
An example: A Linn "silver" interconnect cable with Bullet Plugs on its ends sounded worse than a Linn "black" interconnect from Linn!
Re: Thank you!
I agree, Bullet plugs are terrible. This proves that connector+soldering is more important than the cable. Right?sommerfee wrote:A Linn "silver" interconnect cable with Bullet Plugs on its ends sounded worse than a Linn "black" interconnect from Linn!
Re: Thank you!
Don't know, but in my ears it proves that a single non-Linn element can destroy the whole magic of your complete Linn hifi.lejonklou wrote:This proves that connector+soldering is more important than the cable. Right?
The testing situation was quite funny. While we heard the interconnect with the bullet plugs the wife from the host came home, said "Hello" to us and was listening to the music for a few seconds. Afterwards she said: "I don't know what you have done, but I want to listen to music late afternoon and expect the hifi to be fixed in time!" :shock: :mrgreen:
BTW: We also tried a silver interconnect with WBT NextGen and WBT <don't know, but simple+cheap>. The one with WBT NextGen was terrible, too, the one with the simple WBT connectors was at least quite good, not exactly as good as a Linn black interconnect. but ok.
Re: Thank you!
Completely and utterly off-topic(!), but my own account name similarly has nothing to do with Linn (I never heard of the Keilidh until recently, as I got into audio during the Ninka era): in Canada I ran with the Cape Breton stepdancing crowd (sort of like Irish hardshoe, but looser, lower, and with floppier ankles), and we used to perform in Ceilidhs -- when I first started internet posting (on a VW suspension forum, of all things!), I wanted something as far away as possible from the "CoolRacer-X" etc. names that run rampant there, so Ceilidh was it. :Dsommerfee wrote:Since my Unix account in the company I was working for was named after the first 8 letters of my surname (="sommerfe") and in German this sounds like "Sommerfee" (=Summer Fairy) I use that as my account name here (and other internet forums).
Thanks for the flowers, I always try my very best
Axel
And your best is very, very good! I really enjoyed your Source-First post from this past spring, where you explained how audiophiles with overly-revealing amps & speakers are the ones who are always complaining about the poor production quality in modern CDs and LPs! Opened my eyes, it did, and a whole lot of audio posts I've seen suddenly fell into context. You should repost that explanation here, as it'd be a pity for it to disappear in the non-searchable part of Topica.
Ok, back to topic!
-C
destroying the magic
Yes, this must be a completely vexing profession at times for folks like Mr. Lejonklou and Mr. Thomas (not to mention for Linn as a company)! System synergies and inappropriate components certainly exist in other fields (e.g., I once took an undesired excursion through a soybean field thanks to some cursed nylatron "race" bushings that a vendor swore would "tighten up my handling"), but there can't be many where so many seemingly innocent (and regularly changed) parts can so thoroughly ruin an expensive, beautifully engineered system.* (My parents' new UniSC and C5100 combo is an example here: if I hadn't heard it cobbled together (with the speaker cables simply jammed into the amp terminals) before hooking things up "properly" with the spiffy Audioquest silver connectors, I would have concluded that the SC & Chakra sounds unpleasantly shrill on violins and female voice.) It must be so frustrating to have customers (like myself) ruin a system with their favoured connectors, cables, or interconnects, and goodness knows what an audio reviewer will say on plugging a Linn component into an idiosyncratic "reference" audio system.sommerfee wrote:..... in my ears it proves that a single non-Linn element can destroy the whole magic of your complete Linn hifi.
This is a fun hobby, but my goodness it must be hard at times for those who have to make a living out of it! (But thanks to you Pros for sticking with it, and for helping to educate us!)
-C
* To explain a bit further: yes there are many manufactured products that are integrated and complex, but for most consumer goods, the ordinary consumer isn't so tempted to mess up major elements of the chain. Cars, for example, are fairly easily ruined by aftermarket modifications, but generally if someone purchases an expensive BMW or Lexus, he/she isn't going to replace the original intake manifold with one that a friend recommends as "an upgrade for all makes and models!"....
Success!!!!
Hello Everyone!
Just got back from my parents': at last, we've replaced the silver-plated Audioquests with the recommended Linn Knekt bananas, and.....
The improvement is much greater and much farther-reaching than expected -- basically night and day!!!! No criticism of Audioquest: I'm sure their connectors work wonderfully in many systems. But from what my parents and I have witnessed on this changeover, it looks like a set of silver-plated speaker connectors is an excellent way of destroying the sound of an all-Linn system. We had no idea how good the UniSC + Chakra combo can sound.
Details in a few days -- thanks for the encouragement, everybody!!
- C
Just got back from my parents': at last, we've replaced the silver-plated Audioquests with the recommended Linn Knekt bananas, and.....
The improvement is much greater and much farther-reaching than expected -- basically night and day!!!! No criticism of Audioquest: I'm sure their connectors work wonderfully in many systems. But from what my parents and I have witnessed on this changeover, it looks like a set of silver-plated speaker connectors is an excellent way of destroying the sound of an all-Linn system. We had no idea how good the UniSC + Chakra combo can sound.
Details in a few days -- thanks for the encouragement, everybody!!
- C
Welcome here, bbyte!
What part number or model is this Van den Hul plug exactly?
Have you done a fair comparison between it and the Knekt plugs?
I have listened to a lot of Van den Hul stuff over the years - cartridges, cartride leads, interconnects, speaker cables, plugs, connectors and various other parts. They have all been quite bad performers when evaluated with the Tune Method. So, if VdH have any kind of consistency in their products, they are one of the brands I would avoid...
But this plug could of course be an exception and if they are actually better than the Knekt plugs, I want to try them!
What part number or model is this Van den Hul plug exactly?
Have you done a fair comparison between it and the Knekt plugs?
I have listened to a lot of Van den Hul stuff over the years - cartridges, cartride leads, interconnects, speaker cables, plugs, connectors and various other parts. They have all been quite bad performers when evaluated with the Tune Method. So, if VdH have any kind of consistency in their products, they are one of the brands I would avoid...
But this plug could of course be an exception and if they are actually better than the Knekt plugs, I want to try them!
I don't know the part number, but I will ask my retailer. I'll post later it's photo of this plug. Maybe you will know it...
I've tested it with tune-dem and It is really better. The cost of 2x 3,5m K400 with termination is about 220 GBP (1200 PLN). Bit pricey, but good eneough to pay. In my opinion VDH cables are not worth any money. Maybe there are usefull in some systems, but definitely not in Linn systems.
As I said before - photo of a VDH connector
(note that teflon is custom made)
I've tested it with tune-dem and It is really better. The cost of 2x 3,5m K400 with termination is about 220 GBP (1200 PLN). Bit pricey, but good eneough to pay. In my opinion VDH cables are not worth any money. Maybe there are usefull in some systems, but definitely not in Linn systems.
As I said before - photo of a VDH connector
(note that teflon is custom made)
Bevare of the WBT´s
Hi all,
Having tested almost all combos of speaker cable connection I must warn for WBT spades. They surely looks impressive and combining them with the matching WBT´s on amps and speakers must be best - huh?
No it is not! The sound is very open , clean and uncolored. But you need to retune to get the tune back. But you will never get them to sound good. Definately more HiFi than tundedem or PRAT.
I used the right WBT crimping plier with the right ferules and specced torque so nothing regarding installation was wrong.
Going back to Knekts in one end really got the sound back.
I cannot wait til I get my new set of fully knekted wires back from Mr Lejonklou :roll:
Keep listening! /Zed
Having tested almost all combos of speaker cable connection I must warn for WBT spades. They surely looks impressive and combining them with the matching WBT´s on amps and speakers must be best - huh?
No it is not! The sound is very open , clean and uncolored. But you need to retune to get the tune back. But you will never get them to sound good. Definately more HiFi than tundedem or PRAT.
I used the right WBT crimping plier with the right ferules and specced torque so nothing regarding installation was wrong.
Going back to Knekts in one end really got the sound back.
I cannot wait til I get my new set of fully knekted wires back from Mr Lejonklou :roll:
Keep listening! /Zed
Soldering
Hello People!
I never posted details on how the new silver-free connectors worked out on my parents' system, in part because of sheer laziness and lack of time, and in part because I think all the other folks posting on this forum already know all about connectors(!). But it's a quiet Saturday in Boston today (not enough snow for skiing or sledding, but too much for road biking to remain non-lethal), and since it's possible that someday another novice like myself will stumble upon this forum (with a working "Search" function!!), here are my experiences, for internet posterity. :D
A. Reminder: Setup and Basic Issues
My initial interest in connectors came through a concern over "sound" (vs. TuneDem): basically, my parents' Linn system sounded awful* in one particular way, and eventually the speaker connectors became the last possible culprit. The problem was a glaring shrillness with solo violin and female voice that appeared the very first day we hooked Dad's (2001) Classic Movie System (CMS) to Ninkas with K20 cables, and which persisted through every subsequent component change (through the magic of eBay, at one point or another we tried out a 5103, (1993) Majik, LK85, LK140, Klout, and K400). The shrillness was always there, and since my own Ninkas up in Boston never had it, and since the one constant in all these permutations was the CD-section of the CMS, we figured it was something that'd be cured by a better source.
( * Note: by "awful", I mean awful, as in "terrible". This shrillness was not at all a subtle effect, and was something everyone in the household could hear. If you had the stereo playing reasonably loudly on certain CDs, the shrillness would send us scrambling for the volume control -- it was simply unpleasant. )
In the spring, however, my folks came across a nice demo Unidisk SC and Chakra C5100 set, and the home system finally entered the modern Linn era (hooray!). I picked up the new components here in Boston, and before taking them over to my folks, I hooked them up to my Ninkas and tried them out for a day -- wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, in so many respects(!), and I was sure my parents would be thrilled. But later, when I installed the new pieces into my parents' system, the shrillness was back. And that left the speaker connectors -- silver-plated screw-ons from a respected audio company -- as the last obvious suspect.
B. The New Connectors
To replace the silver-plates, we went with Linn Knekt bananas and Deltron 579, both of which were recommended by both Mr. Lejonklou (this forum) and by a Linn engineer who's been helping us with our system.
The Knekt bananas are between $5 and $6 apiece from Linn, and can be purchased through any Linn dealer who stocks them or who considers you worthy of their time and attention. Neither condition was satisfied for yours truly here in Boston (in the dealers' defense, I'm not likely to buy new equipment from them anytime soon, and they have to spend time on their real customers), and it took a while before I could get hold of any.
The Deltron 579 connectors are readily available through electronics supply houses such as Mouser, and cost ~$1.50 apiece. Previous posts suggested the 579 could be soldered or screwed on, but the pieces I received from Mouser had no screw-on provisions at all, and were solder-only.
We wound up with enough Knekts for the Ninka's K400 connections, and we used the Deltron 579 for the Trikan center channel.
C. Soldering Equipment
Following Mr. Lejonklou's recommendations, we watched eBay for a while and eventually found a "soldering station" that's the previous-generation version of the one he uses himself (Mr. Lejonklou has one with a spiffy digital readout showing the tip temperature; ours has a single little LED that flashes when the temperature matches what's been set on a rotary dial). We went for this station simply to reduce variability: if we have equipment kind of / sort of identical to what The Master uses, then we can follow his soldering directions with more confidence that things will turn out right.
For those new (as we were) to this sort of soldering: a "soldering station" is a very different animal from the household "soldering gun" many of us grew up with. The station is a multi-piece setup, consisting of a power supply / temperature control box, a corded pencil-shaped piece that plugs into the box, a range of detachable soldering tips of various shapes and sizes (which in some brands is what actually controls the temperature -- you can buy a 750-degree tip, or a 700-degree tip, etc.), a little stand for holding the pencil when not in use, and (surprisingly critically) a small sponge that you use to wipe the tip clean. Ours has a dial to control the temperature, and as mentioned above there's a red light that flashes when the proper temperature is seen at the tip. (Clarifying note: the station actually measures the temperature at the tip, and adjusts the power in real time so as to maintain that temperature at a fixed level. That's why these stations are pricey, and you should be aware of much cheaper "stations" that have a "control" dial that simply controls how much power is fed in; such an approach is akin to maintaining a constant throttle setting for your car (which would result in you speeding up and slowing down with hills and tailwinds), whereas the good stations' control is like a car's cruise control, which adjusts the power to maintain a constant speed....)
D. The Solder
We used Lejonklou solder. As expected, the ordering process is pleasant and painless, and just a few days after emailing we received the first piece of mail we've ever received from Sweden. There's not a whole lot of solder in the package, but there's more than enough for quite a few connections, and we've used well under half of it thus far. It's a good bargain!
E. Soldering
This was our first experience at soldering audio cables, and from the first moment it became obvious why Mr. Lejonklou recommends a fairly high-powered soldering station (and why a non-temperature controlled station would be pretty hopeless). K400 cables have a lot of copper, and the Delron 579 has a lot of metal -- and all that metal conducts heat pretty quickly. If you don't have a solid thermal contact between the tip and the pieces to be soldered (and by extension, if you don't have a powerful enough soldering station), heat is conducted away so quickly that either the pieces never heat up, or else they heat so slowly that the heat isn't confined to the place where you want to solder (or in plainer language, you sit there for a long time wondering why the solder isn't melting, and after a while you notice that all the insulation on the cables is shriveling and melting away....). But following the soldering instructions to a T (e.g., wipe the tip clean with great frequency, use a little blob of solder as a thermal bridge, set the temperature as recommended, etc.) makes for a relatively easy time of it (though there's definitely a learning curve).
With our connectors, the Linn Knekt bananas turned out to be easy: they don't need much solder at all, you can see what you're doing, and the connectors are small and heat up quickly. The Deltrons, by contrast, were much more troublesome, as they're bigger, heavier, and have a much more voluminous "solder bucket" (i.e., the space around the wire strands that has to be filled with solder). In practice, the Deltrons soaked up an awful lot of solder, and large quantities of solder mean large quantities of burning, bubbling, oozing, smoking "flux" (the chemical additive that causes the solder to melt and flow properly). With my inexperience and inexpert skills, this flux very much wanted to flow all over the place, and I wound up ruining some of the threads that the connector covers are supposed to screw onto. So if you can afford Knekts (and if your local dealer likes you), they're not only better-sounding, but easier to work with!
F. The Sonic Result
Sorry -- next installment! (We've a Christmas concert at our church this evening, and it's time to begin preparing....) More anon, and hope you're all having a great weekend. Cheers!
-C
I never posted details on how the new silver-free connectors worked out on my parents' system, in part because of sheer laziness and lack of time, and in part because I think all the other folks posting on this forum already know all about connectors(!). But it's a quiet Saturday in Boston today (not enough snow for skiing or sledding, but too much for road biking to remain non-lethal), and since it's possible that someday another novice like myself will stumble upon this forum (with a working "Search" function!!), here are my experiences, for internet posterity. :D
A. Reminder: Setup and Basic Issues
My initial interest in connectors came through a concern over "sound" (vs. TuneDem): basically, my parents' Linn system sounded awful* in one particular way, and eventually the speaker connectors became the last possible culprit. The problem was a glaring shrillness with solo violin and female voice that appeared the very first day we hooked Dad's (2001) Classic Movie System (CMS) to Ninkas with K20 cables, and which persisted through every subsequent component change (through the magic of eBay, at one point or another we tried out a 5103, (1993) Majik, LK85, LK140, Klout, and K400). The shrillness was always there, and since my own Ninkas up in Boston never had it, and since the one constant in all these permutations was the CD-section of the CMS, we figured it was something that'd be cured by a better source.
( * Note: by "awful", I mean awful, as in "terrible". This shrillness was not at all a subtle effect, and was something everyone in the household could hear. If you had the stereo playing reasonably loudly on certain CDs, the shrillness would send us scrambling for the volume control -- it was simply unpleasant. )
In the spring, however, my folks came across a nice demo Unidisk SC and Chakra C5100 set, and the home system finally entered the modern Linn era (hooray!). I picked up the new components here in Boston, and before taking them over to my folks, I hooked them up to my Ninkas and tried them out for a day -- wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, in so many respects(!), and I was sure my parents would be thrilled. But later, when I installed the new pieces into my parents' system, the shrillness was back. And that left the speaker connectors -- silver-plated screw-ons from a respected audio company -- as the last obvious suspect.
B. The New Connectors
To replace the silver-plates, we went with Linn Knekt bananas and Deltron 579, both of which were recommended by both Mr. Lejonklou (this forum) and by a Linn engineer who's been helping us with our system.
The Knekt bananas are between $5 and $6 apiece from Linn, and can be purchased through any Linn dealer who stocks them or who considers you worthy of their time and attention. Neither condition was satisfied for yours truly here in Boston (in the dealers' defense, I'm not likely to buy new equipment from them anytime soon, and they have to spend time on their real customers), and it took a while before I could get hold of any.
The Deltron 579 connectors are readily available through electronics supply houses such as Mouser, and cost ~$1.50 apiece. Previous posts suggested the 579 could be soldered or screwed on, but the pieces I received from Mouser had no screw-on provisions at all, and were solder-only.
We wound up with enough Knekts for the Ninka's K400 connections, and we used the Deltron 579 for the Trikan center channel.
C. Soldering Equipment
Following Mr. Lejonklou's recommendations, we watched eBay for a while and eventually found a "soldering station" that's the previous-generation version of the one he uses himself (Mr. Lejonklou has one with a spiffy digital readout showing the tip temperature; ours has a single little LED that flashes when the temperature matches what's been set on a rotary dial). We went for this station simply to reduce variability: if we have equipment kind of / sort of identical to what The Master uses, then we can follow his soldering directions with more confidence that things will turn out right.
For those new (as we were) to this sort of soldering: a "soldering station" is a very different animal from the household "soldering gun" many of us grew up with. The station is a multi-piece setup, consisting of a power supply / temperature control box, a corded pencil-shaped piece that plugs into the box, a range of detachable soldering tips of various shapes and sizes (which in some brands is what actually controls the temperature -- you can buy a 750-degree tip, or a 700-degree tip, etc.), a little stand for holding the pencil when not in use, and (surprisingly critically) a small sponge that you use to wipe the tip clean. Ours has a dial to control the temperature, and as mentioned above there's a red light that flashes when the proper temperature is seen at the tip. (Clarifying note: the station actually measures the temperature at the tip, and adjusts the power in real time so as to maintain that temperature at a fixed level. That's why these stations are pricey, and you should be aware of much cheaper "stations" that have a "control" dial that simply controls how much power is fed in; such an approach is akin to maintaining a constant throttle setting for your car (which would result in you speeding up and slowing down with hills and tailwinds), whereas the good stations' control is like a car's cruise control, which adjusts the power to maintain a constant speed....)
D. The Solder
We used Lejonklou solder. As expected, the ordering process is pleasant and painless, and just a few days after emailing we received the first piece of mail we've ever received from Sweden. There's not a whole lot of solder in the package, but there's more than enough for quite a few connections, and we've used well under half of it thus far. It's a good bargain!
E. Soldering
This was our first experience at soldering audio cables, and from the first moment it became obvious why Mr. Lejonklou recommends a fairly high-powered soldering station (and why a non-temperature controlled station would be pretty hopeless). K400 cables have a lot of copper, and the Delron 579 has a lot of metal -- and all that metal conducts heat pretty quickly. If you don't have a solid thermal contact between the tip and the pieces to be soldered (and by extension, if you don't have a powerful enough soldering station), heat is conducted away so quickly that either the pieces never heat up, or else they heat so slowly that the heat isn't confined to the place where you want to solder (or in plainer language, you sit there for a long time wondering why the solder isn't melting, and after a while you notice that all the insulation on the cables is shriveling and melting away....). But following the soldering instructions to a T (e.g., wipe the tip clean with great frequency, use a little blob of solder as a thermal bridge, set the temperature as recommended, etc.) makes for a relatively easy time of it (though there's definitely a learning curve).
With our connectors, the Linn Knekt bananas turned out to be easy: they don't need much solder at all, you can see what you're doing, and the connectors are small and heat up quickly. The Deltrons, by contrast, were much more troublesome, as they're bigger, heavier, and have a much more voluminous "solder bucket" (i.e., the space around the wire strands that has to be filled with solder). In practice, the Deltrons soaked up an awful lot of solder, and large quantities of solder mean large quantities of burning, bubbling, oozing, smoking "flux" (the chemical additive that causes the solder to melt and flow properly). With my inexperience and inexpert skills, this flux very much wanted to flow all over the place, and I wound up ruining some of the threads that the connector covers are supposed to screw onto. So if you can afford Knekts (and if your local dealer likes you), they're not only better-sounding, but easier to work with!
F. The Sonic Result
Sorry -- next installment! (We've a Christmas concert at our church this evening, and it's time to begin preparing....) More anon, and hope you're all having a great weekend. Cheers!
-C
Addendum
Hello again, :D
I'm afraid the sonic part of this writeup will have to wait a while (too many things to get done before Christmas!) -- but I wanted to add something to what was written above:
Addendum: Do It Yourself vs. Lejonklou Service
In the above writeup, I talked a bit about using Lejonklou solder in a Do It Yourself mode. In so doing, I might have given the impression that it's a trivial thing to do. It isn't, and if I may offer a small opinion:
1) If absolute sound quality is your goal, you'd be best off sending your cables off to Mr. Lejonklou for his professional soldering service. I say this not because of any comparisons I've made (I've never seen / heard any cables he's soldered), but because I'm pretty sure that the connections I've made are not nearly as good as they could be, and most Do It Yourselfers will likely face the learning curve I encountered. There's a lot to go wrong(!), and even if the solder joints I made towards the end of the project were much better than the ones I made at the beginning, there's no way of knowing if the Weller WSD80 soldering station that Mr. Lejonklou uses is in fact calibrated to the same temperature that my older Weller WS80 is tuned to. Nor do I know if I really used the correct amount of solder, or if I applied the heat for the correct amount of time. All these variables are said to make a difference, and if you want everything to come out in a way that's been tested to be optimal, you'll want to have it done professionally.
2) Doing it yourself is not really a cost-saver, unless you already have an 80-watt temperature-controlled industrial soldering station. As it happens, I can use a WS80 in my work, and eBay happened to have one at a time when nobody seemed to be bidding, but there was still a bit of an outlay.
3) Conversely, if audio is a hobby (as it's become so for my Dad and me), DIY is a lot of fun! :D
-C
I'm afraid the sonic part of this writeup will have to wait a while (too many things to get done before Christmas!) -- but I wanted to add something to what was written above:
Addendum: Do It Yourself vs. Lejonklou Service
In the above writeup, I talked a bit about using Lejonklou solder in a Do It Yourself mode. In so doing, I might have given the impression that it's a trivial thing to do. It isn't, and if I may offer a small opinion:
1) If absolute sound quality is your goal, you'd be best off sending your cables off to Mr. Lejonklou for his professional soldering service. I say this not because of any comparisons I've made (I've never seen / heard any cables he's soldered), but because I'm pretty sure that the connections I've made are not nearly as good as they could be, and most Do It Yourselfers will likely face the learning curve I encountered. There's a lot to go wrong(!), and even if the solder joints I made towards the end of the project were much better than the ones I made at the beginning, there's no way of knowing if the Weller WSD80 soldering station that Mr. Lejonklou uses is in fact calibrated to the same temperature that my older Weller WS80 is tuned to. Nor do I know if I really used the correct amount of solder, or if I applied the heat for the correct amount of time. All these variables are said to make a difference, and if you want everything to come out in a way that's been tested to be optimal, you'll want to have it done professionally.
2) Doing it yourself is not really a cost-saver, unless you already have an 80-watt temperature-controlled industrial soldering station. As it happens, I can use a WS80 in my work, and eBay happened to have one at a time when nobody seemed to be bidding, but there was still a bit of an outlay.
3) Conversely, if audio is a hobby (as it's become so for my Dad and me), DIY is a lot of fun! :D
-C
Bananas
My favorites are the hollow ones:
http://www.lenexpo-electronics.com/1-PA ... 16215.html
I have also seen them on Ebay UK and Germany by different suppliers.
They have 2 set screws; agree soldering them through would be best but I'm too lazy for that... :oops:
However through the years I have found that all bananas require some form of strain relief to prevent the insulation being pulled back: I use a heat gun and 6mm crimp tubing over plug and the first 3cm of cable.
This also lessens the shorting hazard.
These plugs fit very snug instead of BFA's (which mostly have a very narrow wire hole) and also fit inside the Akurate speakers' rear compartment.
For connecting to the Chakra amps I use them too although I agree direct clamping to be best, but it's a lot of fiddling if you have an Aktivated set...
Using good spades also seems a good idea for the amps.
http://www.lenexpo-electronics.com/1-PA ... 16215.html
I have also seen them on Ebay UK and Germany by different suppliers.
They have 2 set screws; agree soldering them through would be best but I'm too lazy for that... :oops:
However through the years I have found that all bananas require some form of strain relief to prevent the insulation being pulled back: I use a heat gun and 6mm crimp tubing over plug and the first 3cm of cable.
This also lessens the shorting hazard.
These plugs fit very snug instead of BFA's (which mostly have a very narrow wire hole) and also fit inside the Akurate speakers' rear compartment.
For connecting to the Chakra amps I use them too although I agree direct clamping to be best, but it's a lot of fiddling if you have an Aktivated set...
Using good spades also seems a good idea for the amps.
Welcome to the forum, Barend!
I have to go against you here, though. I have done a thorough and fair evaluation of quite a few speaker connectors about a year ago, and this hollow type (I tried silver and gold plated ones from Audioquest and one in gold with the same construction but unbranded) is far below Linn Knekt bananas and even Deltron type 550 in performance.
I have heard a few spades, but none of them have been great. What makes you think that they seem to be good? It is impossible to guess the sound quality of a connector.
I have not yet had time to listen to the VDH connectors that bbyte recommended (above). Until I do that, properly soldered Linn Knekts are my first recommendation and for old Linn speakers with smaller banana holes and/or very close-to-wall placement (Linn Kan's for instance) Deltron type 550 soldered in 90° angle is the best choice.
I have to go against you here, though. I have done a thorough and fair evaluation of quite a few speaker connectors about a year ago, and this hollow type (I tried silver and gold plated ones from Audioquest and one in gold with the same construction but unbranded) is far below Linn Knekt bananas and even Deltron type 550 in performance.
I have heard a few spades, but none of them have been great. What makes you think that they seem to be good? It is impossible to guess the sound quality of a connector.
I have not yet had time to listen to the VDH connectors that bbyte recommended (above). Until I do that, properly soldered Linn Knekts are my first recommendation and for old Linn speakers with smaller banana holes and/or very close-to-wall placement (Linn Kan's for instance) Deltron type 550 soldered in 90° angle is the best choice.
Delton 550 or 579?
Hello Mr. Lejonklou!
For normal Linn speakers (e.g., Ninka, etc.), would you have any preference between the Deltron 579 and 550? (I understand the Knekt is better(!), but I'm wondering about the next best (and for me, cheaper and far, far easier to source!) alternative. Thank you very much!
-C
For normal Linn speakers (e.g., Ninka, etc.), would you have any preference between the Deltron 579 and 550? (I understand the Knekt is better(!), but I'm wondering about the next best (and for me, cheaper and far, far easier to source!) alternative. Thank you very much!
-C
The best option is to solder them. Type 550 has lower mass and smaller dimensions and is therefore a bit easier to solder. Type 579 can also be screwed (results in a brighter sound that is slightly less tuneful), but if you solder them well they sound almost identical.
Type 579 is available in gold and nickel plating, I compared these two briefly and thought the nickel plated was a bit better (this was regardless of what metal was in the banana socket; it was gold plated in the Chakra amp end and nickel plated in the Katan end) but I am not 100% sure of this.
If you plan to solder them to K400/600, I'd recommend the cheaper type 550. Both these Deltron types sound more bass heavy and a bit dirty compared to the Linn Knekts. To be honest, I was a bit surprised that a soldered one-piece aluminium connector would turn out to be the best sounding option.
Type 579 is available in gold and nickel plating, I compared these two briefly and thought the nickel plated was a bit better (this was regardless of what metal was in the banana socket; it was gold plated in the Chakra amp end and nickel plated in the Katan end) but I am not 100% sure of this.
If you plan to solder them to K400/600, I'd recommend the cheaper type 550. Both these Deltron types sound more bass heavy and a bit dirty compared to the Linn Knekts. To be honest, I was a bit surprised that a soldered one-piece aluminium connector would turn out to be the best sounding option.
Deltron 550
Thank you, Mr. Lejonklou!
I'll go with the Deltron 550 then (it'll be for my own system: I've picked up some K400 cabling from eBay, and I don't want to "ruin" any Knekt bananas until I've had more practice soldering!). At $15 for 20 of them, it'll be a fairly inexpensive experiment. :D
One note though: All the Deltron 579 bananas I've ordered through Mouser have come without any provision for screw-on connection (no threads, no screws, nothing at all beyond a simple solder bucket). Could the 579 have changed in the time since you received your screw-on versions?
Thank you again for the recommendation!
-C
I'll go with the Deltron 550 then (it'll be for my own system: I've picked up some K400 cabling from eBay, and I don't want to "ruin" any Knekt bananas until I've had more practice soldering!). At $15 for 20 of them, it'll be a fairly inexpensive experiment. :D
One note though: All the Deltron 579 bananas I've ordered through Mouser have come without any provision for screw-on connection (no threads, no screws, nothing at all beyond a simple solder bucket). Could the 579 have changed in the time since you received your screw-on versions?
Thank you again for the recommendation!
-C