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Review on πŸ”Š Mediabridge 12AWG Ultra Series Speaker Cable - Dual Gold Plated Spade Tips - 3 Feet Length - CL2 Rated - High Strand OFC Copper Construction - Black [New & Improved Version] by Scott Goff

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Well, the cables were fine.

I recently ordered a pair of 6ft spade terminals. I chose Peaks because the speakers have 5-pin connectors and the amp manufacturer (Cambridge Audio) said they also have 5-pin connectors. It's not like this. What the manufacturer referred to as 5 pin terminals were actually regular screw terminals with large molded plastic caps on top of the screw caps to make them look like terminals. The terminals also had high protrusions at the bases, which precluded the use of spade terminals. Also, the "pillars" were so close together that even if you could press the blades against the screws, the blades would likely touch and short out. (Unfortunately, this has become quite common among many manufacturers, including some well-known brands.) Then I had the brilliant idea of using it in my small home office. That didn't quite work either. The amp I have has some sort of clamps. They are 3-way rather than 5-way. They also had plastic lips at the base, even higher than the ones in the living room, and they were also nested inside each other. On the other hand, for use with banana plugs, the pins were hollow. So I ordered a pair of MediaBridge banana plugs, hoping they would look reasonably "factory" attached to MediaBridge cables. The only benefit of all these issues was when I cut the spades off one end of the cable to see if the wire used actually matched what the MediaBridge claims, rather than cheap junk in a fancy sleeve. Good news: the wire used is exactly as advertised. It's a twelfth gauge. It's a thin wire. A small increase showed that it was pure copper. Non-aluminum core with copper plating. Insulation - high quality PVC with an additional "smart" sleeve over it. I'm not very surprised. I've used MediaBridge cables for a variety of purposes in the past and their products have always been good value. So I installed banana plugs at the end of the amp cables and connected them to the amp. Unlike the amps, the speakers had REAL 5-pin poles, so I used spades to connect them. Everything switched on, played a few tracks on the computer, and a pleasant sound came out of the speakers. So there are a little more connection issues than expected, but the amp is to blame, not the cables. The MediaBridge cables and banana plugs were of the highest quality. And hopefully the connections are more resistant to corrosion/oxidation and cats than the previous bare wire.

Pros
  • Speaker cable
Cons
  • Questionable purchase for the elderly