Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

These Monoprice Banana Plugs (Closed-Screw, Gold-Plated) are fairly nice banana plugs for the price. Look great: Fully gold-plated, thinner than others (but longer). Not every binding post is exactly the same, so they may fit better with some, or not at all with some (rare). Not a great fit for my Micca MB42X speaker posts, but they do work fine (easy to pull out though). Fit my Micca OriGain amp posts great, oddly enough. Instructions: Strip wire about 3/4". Unscrew bottom piece of banana plug. Insert wire through bottom. End of wire will come out other end about 1/4". Spread and fan out wire over the end (it will be crimped tight when top of banana plug is screwed on). Important tip: Cut end of wire correct length, only need about 1/8 - 1/4", so that when bent over the plug bottom it does not fall on banana threads (makes screwing on very tough). Screw on the top of banana plug, tight. Make sure banana tip is also screwed on tight; yes, it also comes off, for no good reason (actually they seem to reuse body for pin-type plug). Done. Quicker than this makes it seem. More tips: Heat shrink tubing can be used over wire and much of banana plug, to make pretty but more importantly insulate plug and reduce chance of shorts (black and red tubing, or simply black with some red electrical tape to identify wires). Thread-locker can be used (just a tiny bit). Things like DeOxit Gold can be used to help protect and lubricate (preserve surfaces, smooth screw fastening). Also: See CableMatters banana plug page (product photos) for photo guides for a very similar design (photos attached). Or: See Mediabridge banana plug page guides for a similar design (their design seems to avoid threading issue). Or: Search the web for plenty of similar photo guides.