In my experience running long speaker cables often is not a good idea. Think about how much a set of Sound Labs set you back, and the simple fact that they are one of the most resolving loudspeakers on the planet. Running long cables often results in a noticeable loss of impact and resolution! 20 to 25 feet is going to have an effect and you won't be able to solve it by throwing money at the cables. In all the cases where I've seen speaker cables longer than 10 feet, placing the amps right by the speakers and running a balanced line to the amp has resulted in greater definition across the spectrum.
The problem here is no speaker cable is a perfect match for any loudspeaker and the longer you make the cable the worse this problem becomes.
Now you don't need balanced equipment to do this- you simply need a set of line driving transformers at the preamp and line receive transformers at the amp. Jensen makes excellent transformers for this specific purpose. You run single-ended to the transformers, run a long balanced line between the transformers, then convert back to single-ended.
Now if any of your equipment is balanced, you may not need one or both pair of transformers. We built our balanced preamps specifically so we could run long interconnect cables without coloration or losses- in my house I was running 28 feet of Fulton speaker cables; when I went to balanced operation and ran 6 foot speaker cables instead there was an instant improvement in clarity- IOW musicality and neutrality.
Note that most high end audio equipment (sources and preamps in particular) do not support the balanced line standard. This means they can't drive long cables and the cable you use might sound different; if everything supports the standard then the cables will be transparent. If in doubt use the transformers. They are inexpensive relative to the cost of decent speaker cables!
The problem here is no speaker cable is a perfect match for any loudspeaker and the longer you make the cable the worse this problem becomes.
Now you don't need balanced equipment to do this- you simply need a set of line driving transformers at the preamp and line receive transformers at the amp. Jensen makes excellent transformers for this specific purpose. You run single-ended to the transformers, run a long balanced line between the transformers, then convert back to single-ended.
Now if any of your equipment is balanced, you may not need one or both pair of transformers. We built our balanced preamps specifically so we could run long interconnect cables without coloration or losses- in my house I was running 28 feet of Fulton speaker cables; when I went to balanced operation and ran 6 foot speaker cables instead there was an instant improvement in clarity- IOW musicality and neutrality.
Note that most high end audio equipment (sources and preamps in particular) do not support the balanced line standard. This means they can't drive long cables and the cable you use might sound different; if everything supports the standard then the cables will be transparent. If in doubt use the transformers. They are inexpensive relative to the cost of decent speaker cables!