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1/4 inch vs. speakon vs. banana plugs...

#21
Saying 1/4" have worked fine for decades ignores that they were invented 130 odd years ago for low voltage low current use on telephone switchboards and never should have been used for speakers in the first place. The reason they were was Leo Fender was too cheap to invest in something else for speaker connectors when he had the 1/4" already on hand for instrument connections.

Current handling issues aside, 1/4" short out when inserted and removed, so they can damage an amp if yanked on or aren't fully inserted, and it's all too easy to mistake a speaker jack or cable for an instrument jack or cable and plug things into the wrong place or use the wrong cable type.
 
#22
WOW. Lots of incorrect info in this thread.



Fitzy is correct about the original intentions of 1/4" phone jacks and plugs.

Chasarms, 1/4" jacks are good to use for up to around 300 watts of juice. Anything above that, and you run into chances of failure. The reason being, is that the amount of current running through a, say, 12-ga cable, can pass through without thermal problems or inherent resistance. But as soon as the cross-sectional surface area of that 12-ga cable gets necked down to the surface contact point inside a 1/4" connection, you see a huge jump in resistance and tons of wattage flowing through that point creates heat. I've seen plenty of 1/4" jacks/plugs fail because they get too warm and their plastic components melt.

For decades, bassists didn't have extreme-wattage high-power solid-state amps that can push 2000 watts! That's a serious amount of juice! Hell, even an Ampeg SVT6 running 1100 watts is a dangerous amp to make mistakes with, and that's a relatively brand-new amp.



"Again, the bigger issue is the wire itself, not the connector."

Absolutely incorrect. As Bongomania posted, "Surface area. When you consider that 1/4" plugs are round, and the flexible contact tabs inside the jacks are flat, it means the actual connecting surface area of each + and - point is only a few molecules wide. Banana plugs and Speakons have a lot more connecting surface area." That smaller surface area leads to increases of resistance, dropping of wattage, and thermal waste.

Also as Trevcda mentioned, speakons are protected. With a 1/4" jack, you can physically touch the two contacts and electrocute yourself. the same is true with banana plugs. With Speakons, however, their contact terminals are COMPLETELY SHIELDED BY NONCONDUCTING PLASTIC. You cannot physically touch the contacts. That alone should convince you of the superiority of Speakon over previous connectors.



"Mesa seem to have been quite happy for decades with the 1/4"plugs on the 400+, and that is certainly not a "low-powered" amp. They obviously did not consider it worth the effort to change to speakon???"

Just cuz they're Mesa, doesn't mean everything they do is absolutely right. Just look at their Rectifier series amps... BUZZ!!!! ;) I love their construction methods, but not everything they do is genius. Some of it is just following the industry standards, which are standards that are quite obsolete, in my most humble of opinions. :)



"I want to know why the peavey DPC1400 has banana plugs in the US version but the european portion of the manual shows the DPC1400 having speakons."

Because the Speakon connector was developed by Neutrik, a European company, and was implimented there first. Not everyone in the states even knows that Speakon exists, nor exactly what Speakon is for! Heck, some Guitarded Center twerps don't even understand the difference between a Speakon NL2 and NL4 connector, or that there's such a thing as a bridging-only Speakon cable! I've been handed those cables when asking for a standard Speakon cable, and had to (quite rudely) school their asses on the differences. Shame, that a customer knows more about a product than a "specialist salesman."
 
#23
It was not my intention to debate the better mouse trap. I certainly agree that either the banana or the speakon is a superior design. That is not a tough sell by any means.

The initial point of the thread was the feasibility and necessity of CONVERTING an existing cabinet to a different connector.

My not-so-well stated opinion is that there is no real point in converting. If an amp or cabinet is engineered with 1/4 cable outputs, then it is fully functional and safe when operated with said cables. So, your concern should be to use a speaker cable that is well made with high quality wire.

The same goes for banana connectors.

There is no benefit, other than the locking feature, to changing the connectors. The speakon is not going to make any difference in performance.
 
#24
Chasarms said:
It was not my intention to debate the better mouse trap. I certainly agree that either the banana or the speakon is a superior design. That is not a tough sell by any means.

The initial point of the thread was the feasibility and necessity of CONVERTING an existing cabinet to a different connector.

My not-so-well stated opinion is that there is no real point in converting. If an amp or cabinet is engineered with 1/4 cable outputs, then it is fully functional and safe when operated with said cables. So, your concern should be to use a speaker cable that is well made with high quality wire.

The same goes for banana connectors.

There is no benefit, other than the locking feature, to changing the connectors. The speakon is not going to make any difference in performance.
Click to expand...



You haven't really read my post then, to come to that conclusion.


I'll state the points once again.

Speakons are safer than 1/4" jacks and banana plugs because:

1. They lock in place and cannot be yanked free accidentally if someone tripped over the cables.

2. You cannot momentarily short the cable when inserting it like a 1/4" jack does. Every time a 1/4" jack is inserted, the two conductors are shorted for an instant. Very hazardous and potentially damaging to your gear if the power is on. For example, a soundguy crawling behind your gear to adjust a drum mic, he trips on your speaker cable, yanks it out, then plugs it back in without turning your amp off first. That "pop" can blast your cones when your amp is playing at gig volume.

3. Speakon connectors CANNOT ELECTROCUTE YOU. You cannot physically touch, when operating normally, the metal contacts inside the connectors, either male or female ends. You can, however, electrocute yourself by touching the 1/4" jack's contacts at the same time, or touching one contact and grounding yourself. The same is absolutely true for banana plugs as well, for their contacts are also exposed.

4. Speakons are made of electrically insulated plastic. You cannot electrocute yourself by using them under normal usage. Almost all 1/4" jacks have metal sleeves that are, in fact, conductive to the shielding (return) of the cable, and CAN ELECTROCUTE YOU. This runs true for signal-level cables AND speaker-level cables. Unless you've got some insulating wrapping over your jacks, you are prone to electrical hazard.

5. Speakons have 4 times the surface area contact of a 1/4" jack. If you run a very strong amp into a single cab, there is a heat damage risk. I have in fact used gear that warmed up the speaker cab's jack and the cable's plug that was in it, and it was nearly hot enough to burn skin.


And I'll add one more benefit:

6. Nobody downgrades their gear. If you upgrade your gear to use Speakons, and choose to sell/trade it down the road, nobody's gonna complain that they need to downgrade your gear to match their gear, they will upgrade as well.
 
#25
Chasarms said:
If an amp or cabinet is engineered with 1/4 cable outputs, then it is fully functional and safe when operated with said cables.
Click to expand...

You actually think everything is built with modernity and high performance in mind, and updated on a regular basis? Get a job in supply chain, you'll learn that most mass-manufactured items are built with low cost to the manufacturer in mind. That means if it is possible to use smaller, cheaper, or fewer parts, that is what gets spec'd, and (what would have been) robust original designs will be downgraded to save cost. And if it is possible and legal to avoid making any changes to an existing (already paid for) design, no changes will be made. Not only is a certain amount of apathy a cost-saving measure on its own, but manufacturing in nearly every industry is chock full of designs based on preexisting legacy design "modules": sections of circuit like a power supply design, or a cab construction format, or a bass bridge, or a tone stack, which manufacturers can re-use indefinitely as a time-saving tool when coming up with "new" designs. It's a very effective method, in terms of cost savings and not having to re-invent the wheel. But if those modules are not chosen optimally, there will be retrograde or non-optimal performance from some part of the product. And again, this is the mainstream standard of large-scale manufacturing design, and has been for sixty years or more.
 
#26
Bryan316 said:
WOW. Lots of incorrect info in this thread.






"I want to know why the peavey DPC1400 has banana plugs in the US version but the european portion of the manual shows the DPC1400 having speakons."

Because the Speakon connector was developed by Neutrik, a European company, and was implimented there first. Not everyone in the states even knows that Speakon exists, nor exactly what Speakon is for! Heck, some Guitarded Center twerps don't even understand the difference between a Speakon NL2 and NL4 connector, or that there's such a thing as a bridging-only Speakon cable! I've been handed those cables when asking for a standard Speakon cable, and had to (quite rudely) school their asses on the differences. Shame, that a customer knows more about a product than a "specialist salesman."
Click to expand...

The reason for banana plugs not being on the European version is safety. They do not conform to the safety laws. I have seen power amps where the banana plugs were plugged up.
 
#32
I'll "Speakon" this subject as well (sorry about that). The much poorer conductivity (and therefore resistance) of 1/4" connectors is also a detriment to keeping a system's overall damping factor as high as possible. The situation gets even worse when the connectors' nickel plating eventually wears down to wear only the brass is exposed as brass oxydizes easily and creates an even less conductive contact surface. So besides the power handling and safety issuses, the benefit of using short 12 gauge cables for keeping damping factor high can't be fully realized when used with 1/4" connectors.
 
#33
Munjibunga said:
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Click to expand...

I think I must be thick but I have no idea what this post is about.

Paul
 
#34
Chasarms said:
In the 80s, we used 50 ft phono speaker cables on PA columns. It wasn't a bass amp, but AC current is AC current.

Again, the bigger issue is the wire itself, not the connector.
Click to expand...

The correct word is phone as in short for telephone, phono is what you connect to stereos with. In the 80's i doubt whether you put bass through the PA. It's the low frequencies that need the power. Using phone plugs on a 100 or so watt PA is a non issue. It's when you are bridging 2KW into a 4 or 2 ohm load that they fail. Trust me, plastic jacks don't smell very nice when they melt!

Paul
 
#38
Wow guys, such a simple initial question, and so much information now in this thread!

Well, at least, I got to learn a lot. I suspected speakon was the best way to go, now I know...

I still don't know if it is (easily?) possible to put speakon connectors in older Eden cabs equiped with bananas, but at least I know it's an improvement.

Thx again to all contributors!
 
#39
You have a few options.

Call up Eden's customer service and order up new jack plates, which I think come with the 1/4" and Speakon jacks already mounted. I think it includes the crossover and horn volume knob, or maybe just the leads for it.

Or, you can order up two Speakon jacks, and an appropriately sized jack plate, from any of the bunch of online parts websites, and put it together yourself. Go peruse www.partsexpress.com and Invalid Link Removed and www.alliedelectronics.com to see what you like.


Or.... the coolest solution available now....

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]


Install the new COMBO Neutrik jacks! These guys are NL2-compatible Speakons, with mono 1/4" jack inputs in the center. This is IDEAL for retrofitting. You can easily install these as replacements for your 1/4" jacks. If your jack plate or amplifier chassis doesn't have room to add Speakons, you can replace your 1/4" jacks in the same location, usually without any internal interference. But you still gotta double-check your gear for that.

If you want, here's what you can do.

Order up two of these combo Speakon 1/4" jacks, and pop out your 1/4" jacks. Drill out the plate to allow the Combo to fit, drill two extra screw holes for each, and install that. Swap the wiring as appropriate. Then, remove your banana plug fittings, and plug the holes. Electrical tape does fine, one piece on the inside and outside. Then, you can use whatever cable you want to use, or have available, or is compatible with the amp you'll use.

Best retrofit for speaker cabs out there. I'm currently jimmy-rigging my brother's custom Mesa Traditional cab loaded with C90's, to have these Combo jacks. Cuz he loves the idea of his cables not getting yanked out during a gig. But he also wanted to keep it compatible, in case one of our friends in another band suddenly needs a backup cab but doesn't have his Speakon cables. We got all the parts, I just need time to solder. But we're out the door tonight to go to ProgPower USA VIII in Atlanta, so it'll have to wait til next weekend. And of course, a picstory will follow to show the simplicity of the job.
 

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