Speaker Cable Length

The effects of cable length are more apparent on some cables than others. This has to do with their geometry and dielectric materials more than anything. Cables that are of a high inductance design ( zip cord ) will show increased high frequency roll off as you get longer. Most of the the wide-bandwidth cables using braided, twisted, etc... geometries will not be greatly affected other than possible increases of capacitance. This can be corrected by using a zobel network if it starts to get out of hand. Common sense would dictate that the shorter the cable, the less loss and signal degradation, but that might not always be the case. Since the amplifier is "loading" into the total impedance being presented to it, it is possible that specific lengths of cables in combination with your speakers MIGHT perform audibly different. In other words, just like anything else, a specific cable length and speaker / amp combo could produce a "sweet spot" in terms of lengths that sound best. Unless you have a LOT of cables and various lengths of each, you might not ever notice this or be able to experiment with it. I have and have found that shorter speaker cables are NOT necessarily better than longer cables. I had recently gone from one stereo amp into monoblocks perched right behind the speakers on amp stands. I did not have any shorter cables, so i used the original 8' pair that i was using with the stereo amp until my 4' "shorties" showed up. The cables were from the same manufacturer and the 4 footers were actually the next model up the line. Keep in mind that the binding posts on these speakers is about 32 inches up the back of them, so that eats up a reasonable amount of cable right off the bat. I ran the 4 footers for quite a while and was not impressed with the performance, so I put the 8' cables back into the system. Everything was back to normal again. I also have a 15' run of these and noticed no major sonic differences between the 8' run and the 15's. In other words, each system is different and you really have to try it and see. Sean
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My experience on the Goertz cables is to stick with the MI-2's instead of the MI-3's. Those were the exact cables that i referenced in my above post. Keep in mind that you would be adding even more capacitance to an already capacitive load. Either way, i'm sure that a zobel network would help out your installation. This would help to stabilize your amp feeding the e-stat's as a general rule. It would be most effective on systems using e-stat's and widebandwidth amps. I would also check out Nelson Pass' rant on cables at www.passlabs.com under "articles". He did some research and measurements on cables quite a while ago. Using his Dayton Wright ESL's and the specific amps that he was testing, he found that this specific installation worked best with very light gauge zip cord type wires. Their natural resistance and inductance acted as a slight buffer to the e-stat's capacitive nature and helped to balance out the load that the amplifier saw. Like i said before, every installation is different and will require experimentation. Sean
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