Good advice above. I ideally ALL cables would be as short as possible. But then we'd all be listening to Bose Wave Radios. My suggestions:
1. For unbalanced connections, keep the lowest level connections as short as possible. These would be (in order of lowest to highest) analog source (turntable, tape) to step up, step-up to preamp, preamp to amp, amp to speakers. Thus ICs should be shortest and speaker cables longest. There are exceptions to this rule, or course.
2- For balanced connections, keep source level connections as short as possible. Preamp to amp connections can be as long as needed (within limits). Speaker cables can be short if preferred.
It sounds like you might benefit from using active, powered speakers. Place the speakers where you want and run balanced interconnects to your preamp or high-gain source. Should work great if you haven't yet purchased gear.
1. For unbalanced connections, keep the lowest level connections as short as possible. These would be (in order of lowest to highest) analog source (turntable, tape) to step up, step-up to preamp, preamp to amp, amp to speakers. Thus ICs should be shortest and speaker cables longest. There are exceptions to this rule, or course.
2- For balanced connections, keep source level connections as short as possible. Preamp to amp connections can be as long as needed (within limits). Speaker cables can be short if preferred.
It sounds like you might benefit from using active, powered speakers. Place the speakers where you want and run balanced interconnects to your preamp or high-gain source. Should work great if you haven't yet purchased gear.