Speaker cable length for L/R channels critical?

In context of speaker wires, the difference between 982 Million feet per second, and 916 Million feet per second is something that only a Physicist would worry about :)

Theaudiotweak...Why not? Don't the instruments move around a lot while they are being played and recorded?

Mt10425...At the speed sound travels, (about 1000 ft/sec) a 10 foot difference would matter. But what travels in speaker cables is electricity, not sound, and at about 982 Million feet per second there will be no measurable timing difference between speakers. Loudness, and tonal quality will get you an argument about 10 feet. (But the same would be true about 6 inches!)

Ceb222...But what is "electricity". I think it is the disturbance, not the matter, and the disturbance does propagate at or near light speed.

Theaudiotweak...Not to belabor the point, but a 20KHz wave traveling at 916 Million ft/sec is 45,000 ft long (about 8.7 miles). Ten feet represents 0.000218 of a wavelength, and corresponds to a phase angle of 0.078 degrees.

My brain/ears are not that good!

This is an example of misapplied science so prevalent in audiophile circles. True, science says that there will definitely be a phasing discrepancy, but a very little bit of math (conveniently neglected) shows that it is completely inaudible.

Theaudiotweak...Tom...there are several quite straightforward questions that you are avoiding answering, (criticizing my system or my ears instead). Come on: give it a try.

1. When a speaker weighing 50 pounds or more, is suspended by three feet or more of chain, so that its natural (Pendulum) frequency is 1 Hz or lower, how can this frequency be excited by vibrations at 20 Hz, and up? (In other words: what makes you think the darned speaker will move?)

2. What about the instruments moving around as the musicians play them? Why isn't this more significant than speaker motion?

3. What about the fact that midrange sound is radiated by a cone that is moving 1/4 inch or more to reproduce the lower frequencies, and/or moving at subsonic frequency (unrelated to the music) due to record warp?

My experience suggests that the overall sense of hearing extends well beyond the frequency at which a pure sine wave test tone can be heard. In other words, introduction of roll off by a filter, say at 16KHz is easily sensed by someone who can't hear higher than 12KHz in a hearing test. I observed this in my own case and of course I wanted an explanation. I think that the reason is that the sense of hearing perceves not just the change of air pressure, but also the rate of change, and an irregular waveform, like music, has steep wavefronts. A tweeter with extended frequency response can generate these steep wavefronts, and sounds better than a tweeter with frequency response that only corresponds to the "official" audio frequency range.

Also note that the difference between 22 KHz and 33 KHz is not as much as you might think...only one half an octive.