Spring Clip Adaptors
Sunday, 12th June 2022
Spring Clip Adapters: a godsend for owners of classic Hi-Fi components. David Price takes a look for online magazine StereonetUK
Nowadays, the vast majority of us who need to connect speaker cable to an amp - or speaker - will use the ubiquitous 4mm banana plug. This was not always the case, though, and those with a penchant for classic Hi-Fi may well find a set of quite basic-looking spring clip connectors on either, or both, amplifier and speakers.
These are a throwback to the days when speaker cable was basic and thin – what is often referred to as ‘bell wire’. These cables would simply be stripped back to the bare wire and clamped into the spring clip terminations.
If you own one of these classic components, you’ll struggle to fit modern-day cables, as the size is simply too big. Plus, if you own a modern-day cable, likelihood is that it will be fitted with banana terminations which are completely incompatible with spring-loaded binding posts. And that’s where our Spring Clip Adaptors come in.
As a collector of classic Hi-Fi, the reviewer, David Price, is an enthusiastic proponent of these devices:
“I think these Russ Andrews spring clip adaptors are one of the most useful products ever invented”
He adds that they now allow him to use any existing banana-terminated speaker cables without the need for any additional work.
But it’s not just the practicality that he likes, as he also praises the quality of the adaptors, a combination of high grade 4mm banana sockets and Teflon®-insulated Kimber® cable. David ‘really rates’ the Kimber cable as he “bought 10 metres of the stuff to rewire a pair of classic Wharfedale E70 speakers recently, and it dramatically improved the sound”.
Summing up, he concludes that the Spring Clip Adaptors do an excellent job, “sound good and are well made. What's not to like? Recommended, then”.
Media: StereonetUK online magazine
Publication date: June 2022
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Written By Simon Dalton