Gauge + Length +Material = Sound

Any length change of cables will change the sound.Without trying it,who knows how much,and how noticeable.

My prediction is Wishful thinking + Expectations = Perceived Change in Sound.

There is no likely change in sound for short runs of RCA for several feet when using properly matched, well designed and well functioning equipment.

Since you do not hear a difference your equipment is probably good.

Although you might begin to hear something if you went more than 20 feet of RCA on some gear (due to capacitance) and very likely you would hear an audible difference with 100 feet of RCA.

There are volume, as well as bass and treble tone controls on most gear and you can always buy an equalizer - these are all well suited for modifying the sound. Trying to modify the sound quality through changes in cables is very much on the border of and generally well below what is audible unless you go to extremes (from a science/equation perspective).

hahah lol - good point!

To hear minute nuanes that can be imposed by interconnects requires highly resolving systems. Also, length is not a factor for most of these nuances. Materials, and how they are used, and interact with one another will be the mitigators of change. If you want to exeriment with this, change the configuration of the cables COMPLETELY. Use different connectors, with different metal compositions. Use a different gauge OR combine two together (winding is tricky though). Use different conductor metals. Whatever your do, if you want to try to eliminate any variables, keep it consistent. Shielding will make a difference, dielectric composition will effect signature vs. time. These will not be big differences, but could "steer" your sound a few degrees one way or another. Again, it depends on your equipment's ability to provide black background, and high resolution.

I have preffered the finer guage wires in the ICs that I have heard.Start at 24ga,then try a 30-35 ga solid core conductor.If not intimidated go higher (40-50).

Just moved my monoblocks up to my speakers and went from 5.5 feet of solid teflon covered 12 gauge Neotech Occ ohno down to 6 inches.

The sound is cleaner, more direct and live, but losing a bit in fullness. Anther downside is my tweeters are hotter sounding which is not to my liking. I guess more energy/signal is being transferred. Would love to hear from any experts as to why this might be happening.

I enquired with Synergistic Research about obtaining a super short cable from them and they said they don't sell anything under 6 feet as the cable will not be effective at shorter lengths. Call this what you may.

Frankk...what on Gods's green earth do you mean by "hotter"? LoL. Also, "the cable will not be effective at shorter lengths"? Who did you speak to over there...the administrative secretary!?

Pierre at Mapleshade believes that speaker cable should be at least 8' long so they are not the only ones who have this idea. I don't necessarily agree, I have tried a lot of things and the only thing I have learned is that it is hard to predict what will happen.

This was from Ted Denney directly at Synergistic who said there would be a rapid drop off in performance of a speaker cable under 6 feet. I would have thought the other way around but there does seem to to be some negatives with my short cable experiment but bigger positive improvements. I guess it depends what it is you are trying to achieve with a cable, purest sound transfer or altering it in some way.

As far as my tweeters sounding hotter, they just seemed to get louder shifting the tonal balance when I am using the 6 inch solid core hook up wire in comparison to the longer identical 5.5 foot wire. I have bumped up the capacitor size to the tweeter to lower the level. I do prefer the shorter wire as it gives me goosebumps as the presentation is more lifelike. Now I'm thinking of trying some gold alloy based hook up wire but have not been able to find a supplier.

I now see what you mean Frankk. So you're thinking that maybe the gold alloy may tame the tweeter without adjusting the capacitance? Well, that may happen, others seem to hear this phenomenon. If you go that route please inform us as to your findings.