The QED Airloc ABS 4mm Banana Plug is QED's award-winning loudspeaker cable termination, sold individually to allow flexible purchase of exactly the quantity required. It sits within QED's termination range alongside the Airloc Metal variant — which shares the same Airloc cold-weld technology but uses an all-metal barrel for a more rigid construction — and the Screwloc range, which instead uses a conventional screw-down crimping mechanism.
Airloc Cold-Weld Technology
The defining feature of this plug is QED's patented Airloc system, which uses a purpose-made crimp tool to cold-weld the plug permanently onto the cable. During termination, the high copper brass barrel is compressed around the conductors, squashing the cable and plug together into a single solid piece of metal. This process expels all air from the joint, eliminating the oxidation pathway that causes resistance to rise over time in conventional screw-down terminations. The result is a connection whose low resistance is maintained for the lifetime of the cable.
Forté Blade Design
The plug pin section uses QED's Forté spring-loaded blade design, which is engineered to accommodate the variation in 4mm amplifier and speaker binding post socket tolerances. The blade provides consistent contact area and equal insertion force in both 6mm and 8mm sockets, ensuring a uniformly tight connection regardless of the binding post manufacturer. Two shims (2.5mm and 4.0mm) are included to accommodate different cable cross-sections within the 0.75mm² to 5.5mm² compatibility range.
Construction
The body is constructed from high copper brass for optimum conductivity, with colour-coded ABS barrels in red and black to assist with correct polarity orientation during installation. The 24k gold plating on the contact surfaces further resists oxidation and maintains low contact resistance over the long term.