Not sure if this has been covered else, but attempts to hook up either my Analysis Plus or Cardas speaker cables to the Sprout’s small speaker binding posts have been frustrating. There is a very small amount of room to work with and the plastic post screws on the back don’t give enough torque to keep the cables in place tightly. In addition, the width of the metal in the heads isn’t wide enough to secure beefy spades. The speaker binding posts need to be improved to handle spade connections on speaker cables more tightly and securely.
It is also hard to get cables to fit without raising the back of the Sprout off the shelf surface.
That said, even with the tight quarters from the form factor, the plastic post screws need to be upgraded to metal so you can put a socket on it and wrench them down to get a decent amount of grip to hold the spades in place. It’s near impossible to get a good grip with the plastic post screws.
I agree bananas would work better, but many people already own (often expensive) speaker cables with spades.
Yeah, Scott and the team searched high and low for the right binding posts, did the best they could. I think they are one of the weak points in the final product. They’re certainly high quality and functionally ok but not as good as many would hope for. I think we can eventually do better.
The Sprout isn’t the first or only amplifier with hard to connect speaker binding posts. The “four in a square” pattern is quite challenging. For these I usually outfit my speaker cables with banana plugs as New Media suggests. I’m fond of Sewell Silverback plugs. They are reasonably priced and allow me to slide the speaker wire into the plug and tighten it down with two very large screws. If done properly it will hold like grim death.
