Solderless connection/connectors=SQ?

[Swordlordboy1234]

Yes.. two key points to soldering properly... the WHOLE wire needs to be hot, not just melting solder on cold wire. Thats a cold joint.

The other point is you wrap the wire on itself nice and tight. So the copper is actually touching itself just like that video method above however it wont come apart when I pull on it. You might counter with "My car never yanks on the wire so thats not needed" ... yes that may be, but what happens when you are in a rush installing something in the dark one day and you tug on the wire just a little too hard. Now you have issues with the connection just because you didnt take the extra 30 seconds to solder it with a butane solder iron which is on amazon for $70 and I have personally soldered hundreds of headunits together with.

[Kyblack76]

Holy shit, ........

[06RTCharger]

06RTCharger, on 26 Oct 2016 - 9:27 PM, said:

The reason im trying to stay away from solder is for resistance/conductivity. i figure adding liquid metal that is less conductive and more resistant than copper to the equation is a step backward. If i can get a strong copper to copper crimp......that would be ultimate right, if connecting one copper wire to another copper wire? I know theres the point people like to use that "your ears wont notice it" but i dont like to use that as an excuse, i want the best i can do and afford.

I have done this for longer than you are old and have never once had a problem with a soldered joint failing or causing an issue, i have had many issues with butt joints failing due to the fact that there is just not enough material to hold the wire in place when pulled on moderately and with the bulkiness of that many connectors in one location is just a nightmare. Soldered with a quality sealing shrink tubing is far superior in many ways over crimp connections, even with small ring terminals i will solder those as well to keep them from separating, the main point here is you DO NOT want something that can cause an intermittent electrical issue, as most crimping tools do not have the ability to crimp like a manufacturer's crimp can achieve.

You constantly over think things to the point you make a simple job harder on yourself than it otherwise would be.

I initaially was gonna solder everything without second guessing. The only reason this became an issue for me is when i read the WARNING sheet that came with my dex-p99rs that said something like "be sure to use solderless connectors". Now assuming pioneer knows their equipment and whats decent quality, i assumed they knew something i didnt about soldering. So i looked into it more online. My only guess to why they would suggest that is because of the resistance that solder has, being that solder is tin, lead or other alloys or some have 2-4%ag silver which would help but i couldnt find any evidence of how much it improves the soldered connection over regular solder. I dont know why else pioneer would say that. Why does pioneer recommend AGAINST using solder with one of their top of the line SQ headunits? Thats what caused all this second guessing for me.

[06RTCharger]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gtMd66SiGDU

This crimper creates +120 pound strength connection. That should be more then enough connection holding strength to be good. And if i used pure copper tubing, itll be all copper to copper. No tin and lead inbetween. Soldering would be stronger of a bond i guess but for "signal quality" wouldnt it be best to try to keep lead/tin out of the way?

[ShadeTreeMechanic]

Their recommendation was not against solider. It was for connectors instead of twisting the wires together. Sometimes translations are too literal and some meaning gets lost. The best would be to keep the wire out of the way. But since we are stuck with wires, we have to do right by the wire. If you take the cover off of the head unit, you will see solider all up and down the circuit board because solider is the best connection for the application. The wires that you want to crimp are soldered to the board......

[Broke_Audio_Addict]

The amount of solder that coats the strands of wire is so thin that it will have no effect at all on the conductivity, it will also not add resistance to the connection.

There are people here that do this for a living telling you which is a better method and you still want to be stuck on some dumb shit.

Better go melt all that solder off the lead wires on your speakers and crimp them on instead, do your amps internals too, head unit too while you're at it..........

[meade916]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gtMd66SiGDU

This crimper creates +120 pound strength connection. That should be more then enough connection holding strength to be good. And if i used pure copper tubing, itll be all copper to copper. No tin and lead inbetween. Soldering would be stronger of a bond i guess but for "signal quality" wouldnt it be best to try to keep lead/tin out of the way?

Ill stick with my Klein's.

I don't know about anyone else, but when i solder my smaller wires, i typically twist them together tightly and then solder them. The solder mainly just keeps them from pulling apart. I am blown away that some people think you can "lose SQ" by soldering LOL. Then again, i was on youtube the other day and a LOT of people still think the earth is flat.

bottom line. A proper crimp is good, a proper solder is great. A bad crimp is bad and a bad solder job is worse. Neither one should really have any affect on the sound quality of the system unless it is a such terrible connection that it is physically coming loose or falling apart. Even then it's not really an SQ thing....it's more of an on/off thing. Of course that shitty connection (cold solder or bad crimp) making intermittent contact is going to crackle or pop (or come on/off) and sound bad while it's doing that. But if it is solid and strong it shouldn't make any difference which one you use.

[alaskanzx5]

Just gonna say high end home audio brands do both methods. I've replaced Amos on self powered subs, tweets on towers, and mid range speakers as well. Some companies I've seen both methods in one enclosure even.

Either method works. Simple

I did learn a lot about enclosure from looking inside those towers and subs though. They put a lot of work into them.

[06RTCharger]

The amount of solder that coats the strands of wire is so thin that it will have no effect at all on the conductivity, it will also not add resistance to the connection.

There are people here that do this for a living telling you which is a better method and you still want to be stuck on some dumb shit.

Better go melt all that solder off the lead wires on your speakers and crimp them on instead, do your amps internals too, head unit too while you're at it..........

If you have 1,000 strands of fine copper wire, and almost all of them are thinly coated with a less conductive and more resistant material(regular electrical solder).......why wouldnt it degrade signal?

I know circuit boards need it and other applications need it, cant use a crimp connector for a circuitboard lol. But for wire to wire, why not keep it copper on copper?

And i know these people do this for a living and know way more than i do about it, but each time they recommend solder its almost always followed by "its the strongest bond" type of thing. Im not asking which is the physically stronger connection. This is about wondering if there is a measurable difference between keeping solder off a wire-to-wire connection and instead using a copper connection to crimp two copper wires together for signal retention.

[Broke_Audio_Addict]

For one this started with how you're wiring your headunit which doesn't even have fucking speaker wires,

For two, how many connections do you plan to have between the amp and the speakers?

You should have one and that's the one that is connecting your wires to your speakers, one connection if terminated in either fashion is not a problem for signal quality if done properly.

I guess it's two if you count the connection at the amp, but those are built in terminals that you have no choice in how the connection is made.

Hell lots of speakers even have push or set screw style terminals these days.

It's one connection per speaker man, quit making this more difficult for yourself.