Shorter speaker runs or shorter IC Runs...Which is the better set up and why?

Longer speaker wire (unless talking >50ft) only effect wattage loss and lower damping factor, which can be negated by using a thicker gauge.

Longer interconnects do have worse crosstalk and jitter (if talking digital), but a good DAC should take care of the latter and crosstalk has to be immensely bad (above -40dBFS) to be noticeable, which I don’t even think a 50ft RCA would have audibly poor crosstalk; but frequency response, THD, IMD, etc. are almost always near identical to a short interconnect.

@gdnrbob

No, what materials being used has no negation that the only difference is loss in wattage and worse damping factor. You could say a better speaker cable has better EMI rejection, but then you are assuming you live in an environment with heavy EMI. 

Also, sorry to burst bubbles, silver is only better than copper in one way, it conducts electricity a bit better, meaning less wattage loss for the same distance, but 12awg copper conducts electricity much better than 14awg silver, so the premium of silver is not worth it.