★★★★★ 4
The most legit banana plugs I could find on Amazon
Size: 6 Pairs / 12 pcs, Size: 6 Pairs / 12 pcs
NEW PREFACE:: I am kind of glad I first bought the horribly magnetic, horribly made and GOLD PAINTED Sewell crimp on plugs (some reviewers say that Sewell are better and easier to use than the FosPower, which is true in design, but in quality of materials FosPower beats them hands down!!) ... Changing from those to these FosPower plugs plus the Monoprice 90° plugs, I am flabbergasted at the difference they make in sound quality. I have heard people say that they can hear the difference and even as an audiophile I was skeptical..... but my skepticism has been completely erased by what I am hearing with my own ears. I waited a few days to make sure I wasn’t just tripping before updating this review 🤣....but it has become clear to me how much a difference plugs made from the right materials actually make!!! I am 100% serious that the bass coming out of my Polk Signature Series tower speakers has at least doubled at the same volume. I can also now turn the volume up Way past my max volume before, without any distortion and much more clarity and less harsh highs. Everything just sounds warmer in general now which is amazing!!!! This is dangerous info for me... because now I’m thinking about making some really nice custom wires to see how much of a difference that makes 🙄🙄🤣 OK onto the review of the actual plugs here~~
These seem like decent connectors. I can’t tell if they are brass or copper, but they only have a slight hint of a magnetic property when testing them with a very powerful magnet. I was easily able to fit x2 - 14ga wires into it for bi-wiring purposes, including screwing on the collar. (As seen in my example pic) The gold plating on the tips seems legit and not painted like some of the plugs from Sewell... I have tested and tried quite a few plugs from Amazon and most seem to be crap. These however hold up better than most! These and the Monoprice 90° banana plugs with the black and red rubber sleeves. The latter are gold plated copper and have zero magnetic properties. (if you need 90° banana plugs)
UPDATE: still the best plugs I have found, but upon full install found two issues. One is a defect where a set of the plug threads for the barrel cover body weren’t cut right. The body’s do not tighten and stay loose because of that. Obvious issue for vibration with metal on metal...
The other issue is that even though these say they can fit different gauge wires, they seem to be geared more towards 12 or 10 gauge. I am using semi solid strand 14 gauge and find that unless I fold the wire over to make it double thick, the bolts use up all the thread and seem to become kind of loose inside the body. They won’t fully seat and keep spinning no matter how much you tighten. They seem to stay secure still but I just wonder about longevity over time with vibrations. So I just doubled up the wire and they seated fine! Not the worst issue in the world, but just kind of a pain since you have to strip the wire longer than you normally would so you can fold it over.
ANOTHER UPDATE: I had to remove these plugs from the wire to connect them to a crappy spring terminal amp while my better amp was in the shop. The issue I wrote about with the set screws "bottoming out" on smaller gauge wire became a more pronounced issue! I could not unscrew the set screws anymore and just had to cut the wires... So that means I will need to purchase more of these to replace the ones I cannot get wire back into. Not the best design, but still one of the best plugs I have found on Amazon.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2021
