MartinLogan Motion 4i and Banana Plug Speaker Wires

[bryanschmiedeler]

Just bought my first pair of MartinLogan speakers, the Motion 4i. They sound fantastic. Looking to build my system over time to replace much older and cheaper Polks.

I bought some pre-made banana plug speaker cables awhile ago (here) and noticed they did not fig snugly with these speakers. Googled around and received varying information, mostly to take something off the back of the speaker connections and then the banana plugs would work. But that doesn't seem possible. I want to figure this out before moving forward, either get a different pair of speaker cable or understand what to do to get mine to work. For now they just hang in the speakers but if I would bump the speakers they would fall our.

Thanks for any suggestions you might have.

 

[spkrdctr]

I think most ML speakers have a plastic or rubbery insert in the banana plug hole that needs to be removed first. If you did this already then it would be your wires/plugs. Can you post up a picture of your speakers with the banana plugs installed?

 

[twich54]

Agreed, post up a pic and we'll help you out.

FWIW most standard banana plugs employ spring tension which over time will loose it's grip, thus I'm not a fan. On the other hand locking banana plugs are a good alternative.

 

[bryanschmiedeler]

I hope these pictures will help.

I am completely open to buying different cables; whatever will fit correctly with M/L.

Thanks,

Bryan

 

[twich54]

Brian, I don't know that I've ever seen such strange binding posts ?? regardless, even though I can't see the tips of the banana plugs I assume they are of the spring type, which IMO are junk. You could tray and take a flat blade screw driver and pry them apart further so as to increase tension

 

[spkrdctr]

Looking at your wires I see the banana part looks very cheesy. I would buy new wires as the post on the connector is usually a little longer and the fat part is spread out wider which makes it stick in the binding post a lot better. Easy cheap fix! That photo helped and I looked them up on your Amazon link.

 

[18000rpm]

I have the Motion 4 (not sure if the connectors are the same) and I also had trouble using banana plugs with them. Even though they don't fall out, they felt loose and I don't think it made good contact.

In my case bare wire worked the best - push the posts down then insert the bare wires through the slots below the post. Once I release the post the wire is very secure.

 

[bryanschmiedeler]

I think I finally understand what is going on, after looking at all of these posts and doing some research.

I thought (naively) that banana plugs were a "standard" for connecting AVR speaker outs to speakers. I guess they are, but that doesn't mean that every speaker can accept banana plugs. Anyway, I purchased 4 or 6 pre-connected speaker cables that had banana plugs on each end. DIdn't check when I purchased the Motion 4is that they had a different connector type on the back.

Went down a rabbit hole last night on the different kind of connectors. I noticed that most other ML's had a more standard connection, that will accept banana plugs and can be bi-aped or bi-wired. I was particularly interested in the MartinLogan Motion® 35XTi for my basement, or maybe move the 4is to my room as a computer speaker and replace them in my living room with 35Xtis. I see that these have dual binding posts in the back and should work with banana plugs just fine.

I found these cables that are banana plugs on one end and push pin on the other, so I think these would work for the Motion 4i.

Does that make sense?

 

[twich54]

Yeah the should work, the pin, going through the hole on the amp binding post(assuming ones there) but the banana is still the same POS spring tension variety.

 

[bryanschmiedeler]

I am open to suggestions for a better brand of banana plugs.

 

[ttocs]

I use bare wire at almost all of my speakers. It's only the 13A's that I use bananas and that's only since I've connected the subs for each 13A via speaker wire connection. This is so the bananas can be "stacked", one plugged into the other. I may change this if there's ever a problem, but during all the testing I've done the last few months bananas were the way to go.

I have four Motion 4 speakers and the binding posts really hold bare wire Very well.

 

[twich54]

I am open to suggestions for a better brand of banana plugs.

go back and check my earlier response(post#3), 'locking banana' plugs, here's a link to Blue Jeans cable (good stuff @ good prices) .......

https://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/speaker/index.htm