Opinions on shortening speaker cable.

Darryl --

I don't consider 4 meters to be short. And, I don't
want to get in over my head in this dicussion, either.
I think some of it depends on the impedence of your speakers, the capacity of your amplifier, etc. I do believe I am safe in saying that cutting one meter off
your speaker cables most likely will produce a benefit that is sonically insignificant. Something like the
difference between listening to your system and then
moving about an inch closer to your speakers. And,
I do know there is some danger of corruption if your
speaker cables cross over themselves or if they are
coiled. This is why I don't like to have much slack
in my cables. Personally, I keep my amplifiers [monos] right next to my main speakers, so I need speaker
cables that are about one meter long. I'm sure others
are in the same position. I'm guessing there would
be a pretty good market for that one meter length of
cable you would cut from the end of your cables. So,
again, since it can only help to shorten your cables -- even if by an insignificant margin -- and will eliminate
the slack caused by having more cable than you need...
If you can do it and sell the one meter cables for equal
or more than it costs to have them cut and re-terminated, why not? I guess the downside would be
if you redecorated and needed that extra meter. Your call.

Now in my case I do not consider 4 meters each a short run. At what length do you gentlemen believe signal loss takes place ......3 meters , 5 meters...10 meters.....etc, THX

Pierre Sprey (Mapleshade) and Ron Bauman (Omega Mikro) are adamant that, from a sonic standpoint, speaker cable should not be shorter than 8 ft. Don't remember why, and I'm just throwing this out for what it's worth. I do trust their judgment regarding wires.

And now to answer your question --

If you can sell the one meter length and recoup
[or even profit] from shortening your speaker cables
by one meter, it certainly won't hurt the sound quality
and it will eliminate the slack and shorten the length
the signal has to travel -- which can only be positives,
it is hard to find a reason not to do it.

How 'zat?

One more point:

To defray the cost of shortening your speaker
cables by one meter -- have the one meter length
terminated at both ends and sell it. There are
people who would appreciate the opportunity
to buy a one meter length of speaker cable.

There are two issues of which I am aware with regard
to cable length. One is loss of signal. Although, it is
a good principle to try to minimize cable lengths, an
extra foot or two of speaker cable shouldn't make a difference with regard to signal loss, especially if you're already talking about short runs. The more important issue is what you do with the slack. Eliminate the slack and you eliminate any problems that go along with it. That would be my reason for snipping another foot or two off the end of an already short run.

Shortening speakers cables made a big difference in my system, but only if I halved the original length. However, the effect dimished at about two feet. 1.5 meters for interconnects is the optimum length for my system. However, shorter than 1.5 meters was better than longer.