Thanks for the help guys! It's all very useful information for a newbie like myself. I think I'm going to buy a few banana plugs because I connected my new speakers using bare wire only and there is a slight problem... I hear an occasional 'popping noise' when I walk close to the receiver.. this happens when the receiver is on or off.. and very annoying when listening to music. My guess is that it's due to a bad connection?? I hope the banana plugs will solve this problem.. and yes connecting the bare wire (14g) to the receiver was a real pain!