Monoprice Gold-Plated Banana Plugs for Speaker Wire - 12 Pairs, Closed Screw Type

I bought quite a few sets of these during 20% off sales and have been pretty happy with them. They accept fairly heavy cable gauges depending on the thickness of the insulation (maybe 12 gauge?). No crimping or permanent connection is needed and once the plug is screwed down, it is basically impossible to accidentally pull them out. You may need to tighten or loosen the female end for best fit.

There are other designs available from other manufacturers that are far better than these. The barrel of these is longer than it needs to be, but the bigger problem is that the knurling is very sharp, and the interior design doesn't work as well as found in other designs. Specifically, other manufacturers put a kind of serration or teeth on the end of the connector where the stranded wire will come out and be secured when the barrel is tightened, but these have a smooth connection. This provides less room for the wire to spread out and adjust to the clamping force being used as the barrel is tightened back down. This issue is compounded by the knurling being so sharp. After assembling just a few of these, my fingers are already starting to hurt, and by the time I'm done with a complete speaker setup, I'm in a lot of pain. Monoprice does sell a different style of banana plug connector, but I haven't tried it because the per-plug cost is so much greater than for these or the better-designed competitors from other manufacturers. These get the job done, but there are much better options out there. IMHO Monoprice should abandon this particular design and figure out a way to economically copy those better ones.

Terrible product. Can?t get them to grip the wires.

I used these connectors with 12 gauge stranded speaker wire. To make the connectors work better, the banana jack should be removed. Then the barrel removed and stripped wire threaded inside with about 1/8" extending that is folded over the end. Thread barrel back on and over folded wire. A small nub of wire should be seen where the banana jack was removed. Pull wire out a bit then thread on the banana jack. That should do it! Secure and tight fitting that should make good contact to speaker outputs/RCA jacks.

We used these banana plugs with 2 different typed of speaker wire. Connecting thicker strand speaker wire was a bit difficult and had to use pliers to screw the cap on. Connecting thinner strand speaker wire was a breeze and was able to hand screw the cap on.

They were ok, but not great. They did not easily hold the wire and had to be adjusted a lot in order to get them to hold. I have used better.

The Closed Screw Type Banana Plugs are well built and work well. My only gripe would be I had to be super precise when I connected the speaker wires. To much and the banana plugs won't screw together, to little and the wire falls out. It was tricky to get that wire length just right. Other than that they are good plugs.

Building a single set of cables for my main speakers, left my fingers sore and tired. Connections were good and banana plugs are of good quality.

Not what I was thinking about but they’ll work thanks

perfect for the application. well made solid brass gold plated. easy to use -- make excellent cables good connections. If/when I need more these would be hard to improve on. No need to look for anything else. 5 stars