2. cables
  3. 166430-59

Need recommendations for 20' speaker cable

When I first moved in my place years ago, my speakers fired down the long wall in a rectangular room. The speakers were 5 ft out from the front wall and the rear wall was 12 ft behind my listening seat. My amplifier was between the speakers so the standard 10 ft run of cable was sufficient.

Currently the system is turned 90° and as shown in my Virtual System pics, the speakers fire down the short wall with my listening seat directly at the rear wall.

Out of curiosity, I purchased a 100 ft spool of generic speaker cable and moved my speakers to their old location. I knew this would happen but I immediately got more depth, more separation of instruments. More localization of musicians, etc.

I don't want to move my rack so if I keep it this way I'm going to need 20 ft of speaker cables. The fact that I now use monitors and the terminals are 2 ft off of the floor only worsens the situation regarding length.

So, long story long, I'm looking for recommendations on 20 ft speaker cables preferably under $1,000 new or used.

Thanks.
devilboy

Showing 3 responses by ghdprentice

ghdprentice
6,465 posts
 
Nice system and place. Nice problem to have. But, yes I see the problem.
.
You have a room dilemma.
 .
It is too bad there isn’t a portable chair solution... in having the speakers on the wide wall... the couch is too close to the rear wall. In the case of putting the speakers against the window the chair is too far back. A real world problem.

.
I’m not sure I wouldn’t recommend Nordst for the flat wire that could be taped to the floor, or are you going to go under the floor?
ghdprentice
6,465 posts
 
I don’t think you will have a problem finding them. Go to the Used cables site. Used cables are a great deal. They generally sell at half price. So your budget would be $2k new... a good category to be in. Six or seven meter interconnects come up now and again.

.

A better solution is to leave your amp between your speakers and have your rack to the side, eliminating the central obstruction. Get long interconnects. XLR preferred but by no means required for that short of a run.
ghdprentice
6,465 posts
 
I have to agree not to worry about arbitrarily short runs. I have always worried about them but never actually heard a difference.
.
One thing that my trusted audio guy (30+ years) recommended was doing the long run between preamp and amp instead of speakers and amp. Then if I got dual mono amps use really short < less than a meter cables. He said this gets you some real advantage in frequency timing (?) or something like that. I did not go with monoblocks, so didn’t pursue understanding the advantage. If I upgrade to monoblocks I’ll revisit it. I trust him... he has implemented probably a hundred high end systems. These kind of advantages are not likely to be heard in systems < $50K, which always has to be one of the considerations. What level of performance are you at, and going to be, and when?
More to discover