Thoughts on interconnect vs. speaker cable length.

Thanks again to all respondees. I also have my equipment rack (sans amp) by my listening chair and am currently running AQ King cobra between sources and pre and pre to amp (6 ft). Am currently using 15 ft Monster Z2 bi-amp cables between Amp and speakers. I intend to explore other speaker cable options. This arrangement proves so far to be superior to the 12ft AQ diamond back and 8 ft kimber kable 8tc combination I was using. IMO the improvement was due to the different ICs. Thoughts on speaker cables?

I didn't realize that cable length affects phase shift. I stumbled into an interesting article by Empirical Audio: Is it better to have short interconnects and long speaker cables or visa-versa? He measured rolloff and phase shift and came to these general conclusions:

- Regardless of the cost of interconnect and speaker cable, it is always better to make the interconnects shorter and the speaker cable longer.

- Inexpensive interconnects should be limited to 1 meter or shorter.

- More optimized interconnects can be as long as 15 meters.

- 11 AWG ZIP used as speaker cable should be limited to 12 feet or shorter.

- More optimized speaker cables can be as long as 40 meters.

It's all about synergies...

I own the AI 3B and before that 3A and have had great success with 20 foot interconnects from the pre to the amps. I should note that the amps (VTL compact 100's) were made with pro market in mind so their sensitivity is somewhat on the high side at 775mV. I use Crimson MusicLink interconnects and speaker cables... FWIW, my speaker cables are 8ft.

Good luck and enjoy.
Tony

@ mesch,Hi,This depends on what you want to spend?Taralabs is the best at speaker cables bar none!,At eany price point!I would buy used,you can get bargains at times,again what can you spend?

Thanks all. Given I have ~$3500 invested in the amp and speakers, I believe $300 would be reasonable to spend on the used market.