Banana type plug in's are a must correct? The holes seem quite large. I am a newbie & want to be sure.

I plan on using spade connectors on my Focal crossovers is there a real big difference between the gold ones and the regular metal version? Or, is it a waste of money?

Thanks,
T

Alpine 9835
SWI-X
XM (soon as tuner avail)
JL Audio 500/5
Focal 165 K2P's front
Focal 165v Slim's rear
Focal 27WX Sub
Subthump passenger side stealth
Monster Cable XLN throughout

 

Banana plugs aren't a must. Spades will give you a tighter, more secure connection.

Gold will not tarnish like regular metal spades will. Other than that, and the fact that gold "looks" nicer, there is no real advantage to using one over the other.

 

In the back of my 500/5 JL Audio amp the holes are about 1/8" around, meaning that it is wanting bare wire or a banana type plug correct?

Spades would be good for the crossovers, speaker connections....
I'll see if I can find the gold ones locally if not, the regular it will be.

T

 

I haven't seen the amp so I'm guessing that it has what are called 5-way binding posts for speaker connections. These are designed to have spades, bare wire or banana plugs used with them. I'm not sure what the other "2 ways" are supposed to be.

 

The amp would take either bare wires or banana plug. The spade connection I was referring to is in the crossovers. Where you tighten a screw down on a wire or a pronged fork type connector.

I talked w/an installer and he said bare wire is good enough for the hook up to amp; banana plugs are fancey but not nec.

On the crossover I guess I will go with a plain forked connector (no gold) I can't find any local & don't want to wait to order on ebay when it won't make the big diff.

T