speaker cable length question

It depends on a number of things. What your pre amp is feeding to the amps and whether you are using balanced or single ended IC’s for starters. I am running six meter XTR IC’s with a 600 ohm feed from the Aesthetix pre amp to Atma-Sphere mono blocks that are on eight foot speaker cables and they sound much better than when I ran short IC's and or shorter Speaker leads. The eight foot rule seems to pan out here. Another huge sonic benefit to this arrangement as well was getting the equipment out from between the speakers and on an adjacent wall. There are a lot of schools of thought on this subject. Here is one example that seems to break some rules yet works remarkably well. Keep in mind balanced architecture and balanced cables were designed to enable long cable runs to remote recording facilities and are responsible for capturing some of the finest classical recordings we have of all time, without it, these recordings would have been impossible. Later this technology was integrated into most all the recording studios of the world to connect microphones back to mixing boards and tape decks. In many (most) cases, your listening to music recorded through balanced systems. Finally, don't hesitate to speak with your manufacturer for their advise. Happy listening!

signal degrades more in interconnects than in speaker cables.
if not enough juice on input your bottom end will dissapear.
for speaker cables it doesn't matter as long as proper gauge and length used for a proper rms or average current.
to define exactly what minimal gauge you need for a given distance you can contact any HD speciallist who has a table to give you the answer.

Different strokes (or something). My speakers are within 3 feet of my monoblock amps, but 8-foot spaker cables sound better to me than 3-footers. This does follow Pierre Sprey's (Mapleshade) dictum that the minimum speaker cable length should be 8 feet, for what that's worth. Dave

Hi Kj.

I think most likely your best answer is going to come from the manufacturer of the cables you're considering. There is no pat. answer to this question. It depends on whose cabling you're using or going to use.

At one time my own personal experience with many cable makes lead me to believe there was a one trick pony answer. But after seeing a post by Sean in a certain thread earlier this year (which I can no longer find), and considering the uniqueness of our product line (which I had never really done...shame on me), I went back and visited this with our own products. To my surprise, I found my previously held beliefs did not hold up.

Out of this, I've concluded that the answer really should be answered to full benefit by each manfacturer as they should be familiar with how their cabling's topology, build materials, etc. play into their cable's performance as a system of I/Cs and S/Cs and which is better: Longer S/Cs with Shorter I/Cs or visa versa.

For example, Mapleshade, I believe, says the best S/C length is 8ft. I have no doubt that may be true for their offering but it isn't true for us and I bet for at least many other manufacturers.

Again, there is no broad brush stroke answer.

Hope this helps.

Cheers! and Kind Regards,

Robert
RSAD

I have a different feeling- I prefer longer interconnects and shorter speaker cable. I have tried speaker cables of different lengths in the past from 24' to 8' to 5' to 3' to 2'- and I can say without a doubt that the shorter cables sounded better.
Probably because they contributed less to the overall sound.

I have not noticed such a difference with lengths of balanced interconnects.

Will

In my opinion you will not hear any difference between a 12 ft run and a two ft run. I would be more concerned about the length of the interconnects. Do they have to get longer because of the shorter speaker cables?

Chuck

Aren't you asking the question:

For a fixed distance Preamp to amplifiers to speakers what is the best sounding balance of distances (pre to amp) vs. (amp to speaker).

In my experience, you are better off with shorter i/c's and longer speaker cables (wonder if this will light off a firestorm?).

happy listening