Small Spade Adapters – Banana Plug or Bare Wire, Radique Audio

A red and black pair of short adapters, assembled in our Ottawa shop, that let the small screw terminals on vintage amplifiers, receivers and speakers take banana plugs or heavy speaker wire.

What they are

Plenty of vintage gear connects its speakers through small screw terminals: a screw head that clamps the wire down against a plate. They were made for thin bare wire wrapped under the screw. A banana plug will not go in, a full-size spade will not fit under the screw, and heavy modern speaker cable is too thick to wrap neatly.

Each adapter has a gold-plated mini binding post at one end and a small spade, or fork, at the other, joined by a short lead. The small spade slips under the terminal’s screw and tightens down flat. From then on the binding post does the work: push a banana plug into it, or clamp bare speaker wire in it, up to 12 AWG, far heavier than the original screw was ever meant to hold.

Leave them fitted and changing cables takes seconds, with no screwdriver and no re-twisting the ends of your wire each time. The whole adapter is only 3.5 inches long, so it adds next to nothing to the cable run behind it.

Which pack

A red and black pair covers one channel. Two pairs cover a stereo amplifier or receiver, or a pair of speakers. Four pairs cover both ends of the system.

How they are built

Each small spade is crimped onto its lead and the crimp is sealed under heavy-duty heat-shrink, so the joint is mechanically secure and covered right up to the fork. Red and black leads make polarity easy to follow at the back of a dark rack. Each pair comes in a labelled Radique Audio bag.

Fitting them

Loosen the terminal’s screw, slide the small spade under its head and tighten it down firmly. As with any speaker connection, keep each channel’s red and black clear of each other.

Our own Radique Audio banana plugs are made for the job. If you would rather do it in one piece, our House CCA speaker cable comes ready-made with banana plugs at one end and small spades at the other, and our Custom Speaker Cable Builder will put small spades on either end of any of our cables.

A small, simple fix for a common vintage annoyance: banana plugs and proper speaker wire on terminals that were never made for them.

Available for pickup in Kanata, or shipped across Canada and internationally — we have sent equipment to fifteen countries in the past year. Adapters like these ship in our high-quality Radique Audio bubble packs. If you order them with speakers or other larger gear, everything is boxed up together. Live shipping rates for your address are calculated at checkout. Backed by Radique Audio’s Bumper-to-Bumper Warranty. Available for audition by appointment in Kanata.

Small Spade Adapters Specifications

• Type: speaker terminal adapters, banana plug or bare wire to small spade (fork)
• Input: gold-plated mini binding post with a clear cap, takes a banana plug or bare wire up to 12 AWG (12 is a tight fit)
• Output: small spade (fork) for #10 / M5 (5 mm) screws and studs
• Lead: short, 18 AWG, red and black
• Termination: crimped, sealed with heavy-duty heat-shrink
• Packs: one pair (one channel), two pairs or four pairs
• Assembly: hand-assembled in Ottawa
• Packaging: labelled Radique Audio bag
• Dimensions: approx. 3.5 in (90 mm) long per adapter, top of the post to the tip of the fork

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