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Speakon Vs 1/4 inch

#81
Jim Campbell said:
like i said..... show me your banana plug equipped instrument gear.....you have mentioned 1 or 2 pieces of swr gear out of all thats out there
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You see, that's not what you said. What you said was this:

Jim Campbell said:
they are meant for home stereo stuff and are fairly light duty.....
Click to expand...

You clearly said this because you have no real idea what you are talking about and for some reason this seemed right.

Or maybe you just put that out there on spec. Who cares if it's accurate or not.

Now that it has been explained to you that banana plugs are in fact:

1. Commonly used in pro audio applications and have been for decades.

and

2. Heavy duty connectors capable of carrying a great deal of current, with more contact area even than Speakon plugs.

You have decided to pretend that you said that banana plugs are not used in very many bass guitar amps. Which is a completely different statement.

It's also not true, but confronted with a list of such amps(pretty much any vaguely boutique-ish, high powered amp made before the takeover of Speakon plugs) I'm sure you would decide that you had in fact said that they are not found in many bass guitar amps painted bright pink.

And manufactured between June and August of 2003.

In Dayton, Ohio.

Eventually something will come out that is at least vaguely accurate.
 
#83
What a fascinating chat of semantics and convenience.
What are the actual specifications on 1/4" vs Speakon vs banana in watts based on say a 4 ohm load?
Thought it would be good for the masses (me included) to make sure that I'm not excedeing the rated output of my connectors.

BTW, the eraly Trace Elliot equipment has XLR output jacks and nobody (inlcuding TE) sells them any longer; you have to make your own cables for these amps
 
#86
projectMalamute said:
You see, that's not what you said. What you said was this:



You clearly said this because you have no real idea what you are talking about and for some reason this seemed right.

Or maybe you just put that out there on spec. Who cares if it's accurate or not.

Now that it has been explained to you that banana plugs are in fact:

1. Commonly used in pro audio applications and have been for decades.

and

2. Heavy duty connectors capable of carrying a great deal of current, with more contact area even than Speakon plugs.

You have decided to pretend that you said that banana plugs are not used in very many bass guitar amps. Which is a completely different statement.

It's also not true, but confronted with a list of such amps(pretty much any vaguely boutique-ish, high powered amp made before the takeover of Speakon plugs) I'm sure you would decide that you had in fact said that they are not found in many bass guitar amps painted bright pink.

And manufactured between June and August of 2003.

In Dayton, Ohio.

Eventually something will come out that is at least vaguely accurate.
Click to expand...
pro audio stuff is made by the same guys who make home audio and im sure that ease of manufacture came into play....and im still waiting to see a banana that would stand up to being stepped on.because they were widely used does not mean that they were the best option only a convenient option...you will have to excuse me for not adding"generally"to my original statement but i was not expecting all the vitriol.....

i guess that its the not so much now part of it that confuses me.....if they are not as widely used now ...why....i fully understand the difference between pa gear and instrument gear and the probability of pa gear being used by djs and other cross over applications where bananas may be a better fit .....even the expensive bananas i use for home audio look pretty flimsy next to a neutrik 1/4

...maybe you should you tone it down a notch,you seem to relish the possibility of jumping on someone to prove god knows what.....lifes too short
 
#87
Jim C said:
What are the actual specifications on 1/4" vs Speakon vs banana in watts based on say a 4 ohm load?
Click to expand...

Didn't find the specs, but found some ratings:


1 amp cheap metal open-air 1/4" jack
3 amp plastic PC mount 1/4" jack
15 amp "speaker" 1/4" jack
20 amp mid-level banana (I've seen better)
30 amp Speakon.

At 4 ohms this puts the power "ratings" at 4 to 900 watts for 1/4", 1600 for banana, & 3600 for Speakon.
 
#88
Jim C said:
What a fascinating chat of semantics and convenience.
What are the actual specifications on 1/4" vs Speakon vs banana in watts based on say a 4 ohm load?
Thought it would be good for the masses (me included) to make sure that I'm not excedeing the rated output of my connectors.

BTW, the eraly Trace Elliot equipment has XLR output jacks and nobody (inlcuding TE) sells them any longer; you have to make your own cables for these amps
Click to expand...
too bad really because they were easy to make and locked in place.....i dont recall any inlet plugs loosening up and spinning.....where i had problems was with gear that did not always use the same hot pin
 
#89
Bannana (or MDP, or 5 way binding post) connectors have been a speaker connector in the professional world for many years, 30 at least. They are ment to be used for internal or protected rack wiring to either output panels or to the load itself. Most are used (in pro applications anyway) for wiring to output panels that live on the amp racks. These panels generally have NL-4, NL-8 or EP multipin speaker connectors.

Very few home audio amplifiers use Bannana connections. Those that do generally have (or had) their roots in the pro or commercial audio field.

1/4" speaker connections are not suitable for speaker signals over about 50 volts peak or 175 watts into 8 ohms. It's not the current that drives this safety issue. The risk of electrical shock is too great and that's what has driven SpeakOns in the European market... their CE low voltage directive which we as manufacturers must follow if we choose to sell our equipment there.

I praise the day XLR connectors were banned to the scrap-heap for speaker level signals. There wer far too many accidental connnections that cause failure of things like microphones plugged into an XLR speaker cable laying on stage. Then there were those who reversed the connections so males were the signal source and the pins were both hot and too inviting to plug into a stage box by a "helpful" hand.
 
#90
I didn't even read agedhorse's post and already I think I agree with him. Banana into binding posts was a favored connection for ages in pro audio, and it is still a respectable route today.

Speakons however have some advantages. I'm sure they were noted, except perhaps for single run quick connect biamping, which really is an aid.

As concerns speaker connects, 1/4" is just above RCA in durability and transference quality. It's a toy from the old days. It needs to go away. And it has for me since whenever it was I first used bananas, and then when Speakons came out I switched for most of my stuff.

Only in MI circles would anybody consider 1/4" some big deal still ; }
 
#93
bongomania said:
Oh, please... Boo hoo. Requiring a screwdriver is really brain-dead. :rolleyes:
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It's just dumb. I've done it plenty. I've got all sorts of adapters for all sorts of things rigged up, but this part of the whole Speakon thing is stupid.

Procedure for running my Sunn SA11 bridged: flip a switch and move the 1/4" plug from the 'right' output to the 'bridged' output.

Procedure for running my Nady SPA 850 bridged: flip a switch and move the banana connector from the rightmost two jacks to the center two jacks.

Procedure for running a typical Speakon equipped power amp bridged: flip a switch, take out a screwdriver and disassemble the plug, putting it back together with the wire previously connected to the 1- terminal now connected to the 2+ terminal, put back in same jack.

How can one argue that this is a better thought out system?
 
#95
projectMalamute said:
Procedure for running a typical Speakon equipped power amp bridged: flip a switch, take out a screwdriver and disassemble the plug, putting it back together with the wire previously connected to the 1- terminal now connected to the 2+ terminal, put back in same jack.
Click to expand...

This is a fallacy. None of my power amps require any such changeover when going from the single-channel jack to the bridged jack. Maybe you've used some that do require that, but it's not typical.
 
#96
I just went to the Neutrik website, and I couldn't find a really convenient power handling comparison chart between the main types of plug/jack we're discussing, but by digging through a few of their product-line pdf's I came away with:

1/4" plug: 3 Amps
Speakon plug: 30-50 Amps
Banana plug: 20 amps
 
#99
Generally, bridging on a power amp w/ NL-4's requires either a dedicated bridge jack on the amp wired 1+/1- (somewhat common) OR a dedicated bridge cable that is wired 1+/2+ on the amp end and 1+/1- on the speaker end (also somewhat common).

I would never suggest rewiring a cable as it's only a matter of time that an accident happens... a stripped or lost screw etc.

Bridging with 1/4" connectors, especially on high powered amps is just plain dumb... the shell is not at ground and high peak voltage will exist between shell and chassis.

The day they take away the bridged option from musicians might be another good day too. I can't believe the number of amp (and speaker) killing mistakes that I have seen out in the real world... usually errors in better judgement. ;)
 

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