Shorten my speaker cables?

The old rule of thumb, is that given the choice, shorter speaker cables are more critical than shorter interconnects to the amp(s). I am in the same boat, as I've been using the same 12' speaker cables for many years, but l have finally gone to mono block amps and now only need 6'.

When going with shorter speaker cables that are keepers, make sure that your amp(s) is in its final resting place. My last tweak for my current system will be the replacement of most of my cables, so I want to be done with moving gear around.
Kenny

I have Satoris (shotgun) for a while and they are wonderful.  In comparison to my previous AQ Indigo they have fuller lower midrange (male voices, cello), being faster with silky smooth trebles.  Much better overall.  I considered Oval 9's an read many reviews.  Satoris supposed to be a little better while Oval 9s are a little bass heavy.  I would definitely take advantage of shorter cables, but wouldn't cut.  Sell them - you can get better shorter cables.  Re-terminating can also be difficult.  Satoris are very thick (I think it looks cool) since they consist of bunch of individually insulated strands in helical twist on hollow tube.  One of the strands is not solid, but stranded (tiny wires).  I removed original bananas, cleaned, crimped spades and then soldered. 

I also replaced AQ King Cobra with Acoustic Zen Absolute (both 0.5m XLR).  Absolutes are more refined, have better resolution, blacker background etc.  Overkill for my modest system, but it was very good price.  

Oval 9’s are very easy to re-terminate and sell the rest of unwanted length. You will need heavy duty crimping tool.
That's the one I use: http://www.parts-express.com/heavy-duty-modular-crimp-tool-rj45--150-054

The other thing that will help besides going to shorter speaker cables is to go to longer interconnects and move the gear away from in between the speakers. Cheers,
Spencer

Im using 2 Meters speaker cable and 21Ft interconnect cable as i don't want my rack between the speaker many people say more than 2 Meters is no good.

Not bologna at all. Many people just got used to listen to what most people say due to the fact of convenience of not using own mind. Swimming downstream is much easier, but not every time justified.

If you cut each 16' cable in half and terminate the new ends with spades or bananas, you'll have two pair of 8' cables, great for bi-wiring or going "shotgun" (two cables for each non-biwired speaker). 

If it were me, I'd send them back to the manufacturer for retermination at your needed length.  The cost will be amortized over the years you use them.  I like to do things right.

I like to do things right.

...and 'right' is very very subjective.

But not too subjective or we would be unable to agree on anything, right?

'We' is subjective as well.
One group of 'we' has its own agreements and own 'right', right?

Can be, right.

What have we sunk to.....we need to know what "is" is

Perhaps we don't want to know it and yet we do. Now let's try to define "know".

Yep, shorter is better. The amp pulls on a shorter "string" to move the speakers.

Given the distance of typical home setup speaker cable, shorter distance is only theoretically beneficial, given the lower resistance. There is no practical difference (i.e. one cannot hear a difference) between a 25 foot cable and the same cable only 5 feet. Same goes for different length of the same cable. Only when extremely large footage - like hundreds - is considered does length and difference in length matter.

In my view keeping the cables "longer" as opposed to "shorter" is preferable because besides the increased flexibility to move or re-position equipment, I do not terminate the end (i.e. attach bare wire to binding post) and every now and again I like to re-do the ends, albeit each iteration decreased the length of the cable.

Hi: There is research that short cables work best for BASS frequencies. Hence, subwoofers with Amps built; in sound pretty good with out a lot of other technology built in there. I guess if I was building from scratch I would take that into account. Real word solutions often involve "Other people" and room geometry and configurations. I have used Mono Block configurations with a 1 foot Purist Audio Design cable; to the Woofers of my Celestion A3s and BiAmped the top (7" mid and metal dome Tweeter). You can tailor the sound better, but it is a lot more equipment and room dependent. Bass definitely improved even with Adcom 555 IIs bridged! Some of it was cable, some of it was more power bridged. You enter a world of variables here? Most of the length of Cable discussions here have seemed to be consistent with my 40 year adventure in this Hobby. I also adhere to a same length of cable strategy for both speakers. If one speaker is one foot away and the other is twenty feet away; both cables should be 20 feet. This stabilizes the load on the amp? I was told this by an engineering student I went to college with. I believed it, seems logical and before Surround Sound amps; always followed that.

I'm not sure how someone could say with a straight face that a cable X 5 or more longer wont have an audible difference between its much shorter counterpart.

There is no getting around the fact that all electrical parameters involved with the wire in question increase as the distance increases. More Capacitance, Resistance, Dielectric and Shielding influences on the sound and lets not forget the increased chances of the wire acting like an antenna.

Then there is the increased cost of having more wire then is really needed but that is a whole other topic but not an insignificant concern depending on the wire in use with todays sky high prices or esoteric wire @ $1k per/ft or more.

When I was able to use very short (2ft) and rather inexpensive (Mogami) speaker wire in my system I could hear low level details on certain songs that several well known and esoteric brands of wire @ 20X the cost and 8-13ft long could no longer seem to uncover playing the same song on the same equipment. 

In going quasi mono block my speaker wires are now 18", that’s right, inches, and this did make a noticeable difference in mid & high frequency clarity, depth of soundstage, etc.

That said, I did go from using a standard two channel setup to vertically biamping the mains which allowed the shorter cables, so how much of the improvemed sound is attributable to the shorter cables is your guess as much as mine lol.

Martin

I am a fan of Acoustic Zen cables. I have tried and prefer their Hologram II single ended over the Satori shotguns and they even cost less. You can often find them used on this site.

"IS" is a prime number that can be divided by 1 or itself in math terms the following ways:

IS/1 = IS and
IS/IS = 1

Same with 5/1 or 5/5 etc...

I run all balanced with a 30' run between amp and preamp. My Prosaic speaker cables are under two meters. I have my turntable and phono preamp in another room, with the turntable suspended from the ceiling. The phono preamp is connected to the preamp with balanced cables.

 If you search on Nelson Pass and cable impedance or damping he wrote a quasi-scientific paper on damping factor, transformer/capacitive coupled amps, resistance/damping including OTLs, I believe, cable/speaker interaction, speaker cable length and gauge, and resistance, inductance and capacitance. He measures the interaction of different types of cables with different types of speakers, dynamic and electrostatic. Roger Sanders has a discussion/paper too at his sanderssound web site.

The only reason you see ALL the equipment sitting between the speakers at hi-fi shows, pictures in magazines or at dealers' is because they want to keep your attention fixed on the equipment and fancy racks rather than a proper set up. The only saving grace is the short speaker cables runs, if they are the correct cables in terms of I, R, and Z. The monstrous cables with boxes on the end that sell for gigabucks merely have IRZ networks tailored to the particular speaker. One can do just as well at a much lower price if one follows basic electronics.

Oh, has anyone seen an audio company where their speaker cables are shunted to ground through the earth lead of an altered male mains plug. This should produce a positive effect at least according to electronic theory. Guess I should say neutered!

To follow up, the AC plug in question has the hot and neutral leads clipped and sealed; only the oval earth connection remain. Perhaps the only wire in the expansion from the speaker wires is the earth wire. Grounding the speakers to earth should produce a better electronic result in many cases. YMMV.

Send them back to the manufactuerer for retermination....or check out ClearDay cables....they will send you a trial sample to see if it works and won't even charge you for the fun.  If that doesn't work, then reterminate them.