Actually, I think the reverse is truer, that is; longer (balanced) interconnects and shorter speaker cables.
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How long should speaker cables be?
My cables are 12 feet long but with my current setup 6 feet would be more than enough. I recall reading somewhere that connectors should be short and speaker cables should be long. Does anyone have an opinion on this?
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In general, everything should be as short as possible However, the shortest definitely need to be the lowest voltage… like the TT to phono stage and the phono stage to preamp. If you have to go for a long run do it between the preamp and amp. Very short… one or two feet between the amp and speakers can be absolutely incredible. So, if long… between preamp and amp. |
It sort of doesn't matter if you're using good cable, but stick to less than 300 feet. Balanced cables to mono amps is a great thing, but most people don't have room for that or things aren't balanced in the first place, so don't fret over it...or do fret over it and be stressed out and get therapy and live alone and sad with maybe a cat. |
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from any vintage McIntosh manual. They have a chart with recommended guage/distances. "Added resistance causes depreciation of damping characteristics, modification of frequency response and reduction in power to the loudspeaker. Use lamp cord or wire with similar insulation to connect the speakers to the amplifier. In all cases, the leads to and from the speaker should be twin parallel conductor or twisted pair. When using 8 ohm speakers and for the normally short distances of under 30 feet between the amplifier and speaker, #18 wire or larger can be used. For distances over 30 feet a larger diameter wire is required. Select the correct size from the chart below. The DC resistance of the speaker leads should be less than 5% of the speaker impedance. Resistance of the leads must be computed for the length of wire both to and from the speaker or speakers. MAXIMUM WIRE LENGTHS Wire Gauge 18 16 14 12 10 For 4 Ohm Load Feet 15 25 40 60 100 Meters 4.57 7.62 12.19 18.29 30.48 For 8 Ohm Load Feet 30 50 80 120 200 Meters 9.14 15.24 24.38 36.58 60.96" The world has moved far beyond lamp cord mentioned in those days, you have to decide if you hear a difference, and it so, preferred? I make my own out of CAT 8, pure copper, great insulation: 8 individually insulated small diameter solid strands add up to 13awg. Ridiculous, but preferred! Hah! |
As others have mentioned above, the prevalent thought for many is long interconnects and short speakers cables. My speaker cables are currently 6' which is more than enough, but my interconnects (straight RCA) are 18' to my reel-to-reel and turntable. Many will talk about the need for balanced cables if long runs but I can discern no difference in sound or volume whether I use a 3' RCA or the 18' RCA. I queried AudioQuest's tech people about it one day too and they said that the longer interconnect is the way to go as well, and, that the cables will pick up little to no noise at that distance nor will you have significant signal loss. I am currently using AQ Evergreen RCA cables and also AQ Rocket 11 speaker cable. Of course, your mileage may vary so trust your ears. Here is a PS Audio "Ask Paul" segment about it.
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@larryincmh if single ended works for you, it works, if it does not, it does not. A long single ended cable is often bad, not because it allows you to pick up more noise, because realistically, who has big noise generators near their audio equipment, but because there is higher resistance in the ground connection which could translate into ground loop noise. If you do not hear it, then don't fret about it. If someone with some basic understanding of electrical properties and audio systems designed your speaker cable, and is not trying to trick you, then a bit of length in your speaker cables is unlikely to make a difference in the sound. If you are running Maggies and your cables have a lot of inductance or you are running Wilsons and you have a lot of resistance, there could be an audible difference between a short and long cable. If your cables are some esoteric but poorly designed cable where the resistance is equivalent to 18awg, then I would be shortening them from 12 to 6 feet personally. They may sound different. It could be worse or better. |
They sell them in standard lengths up to 23ft. Obviously these cannot be shortened by the end-user and I am pretty sure Nordost doesn't offer this as a service. I have Purple Flare's which I'm now using for my AV system and they are a few feet too long. My issue with the length (and this design in general) is inflexibility of the ribbon which makes cable management difficult. I'll get rid of them eventually. If you are OK with the extra length aesthetically, then I'd say leave them as is. |
Just who, if not you, is the expert? Try what makes sense , listen and modify, but first get the room acoustics right and only change one thing at a time. If I have to go long, it will be because of bass passed through my second FLOOR listening room and anything that I do to tame vibration issues is far more critical than long speaker, or long balanced interconnects. |
Where possible speaker cables should be kept short and interconnects can be as long as it takes but should be balanced if very long. But the speakers do need to see some capacitance and resistance load. So where monobloc amps can be placed adjacent to the speakers, I wouldn't go below 4 feet. OP says he needs less than 6 feet so he might experiment with 4 feet. May well be little difference can be heard from 6 feet. In my monobloc set up I use 6 feet of heavy Kimber silver with four terminations at the speaker end. Sounds good to me. |
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Naim is an unusual situation. They traditionally designed their amplifiers with a certain amount of impedance expected in the cables. Their older amplifiers could become unstable without it. Amps built by everyone else and pretty sure the newer Naim amps do not need this to be stable so this recommendation does not apply. In regards to shorter is better, I once had a set of monoblocks and took it to the extreme by configuring it all so the speaker terminals were very close to the amp binding posts and used very short jumpers, a few inches. It sounded horrible. Shrill and basically unlistenable. Longer cables made it sound great. I repeated it several times and there was no doubt a huge difference. I only bring it up to reinforce what many others have said.... it depends. The only way to know is to try it.... I know that isn’t much help but it is the reality |
Yes, as many have stated, short runs of loudspeaker cable are often best. To be practical I would say 3 meters or shorter if possible. But the real world often dictates otherwise. I would like to offer that keeping single ended interconnects (SEI) to 1 meter or so is not a hard or fast rule. This is dependent on several factors. My preamplifier has an output impedance of a rather low 200 ohms and is capable of driving long SEI if required. In my initial room setup, I had interconnects to my mono blocks about 2 meters long. After changing my room, I now have a 25-foot pair of interconnects to my mono blocks with absolutely no issue(s). All my other interconnects are 1-meter pairs and a 2.5-meter pair. Some people who have gone all digital without a stand-alone preamplifier may use balanced XLR interconnects. Just making this point for whatever it may be worth. |
