Are Speaker Cables Longer than 6 FT. Superior?

If you can use balanced interconnects, it's prob'ly better to go long IC short SC.

Happy 4th to all us Colonists. Celebrate well, enjoy good friends and family and, stay safe! Happy Sunday to you if you're not celebrating the US independence.

Ridge Street used to be solidly in the Long I/C - Short S/C camp. There was a thread a while back that lead RSAD to revisit that. As a result of further evaluation of what I think makes a good cable and further audition/comparisons, I've firmly concluded you can't take a definitive answer and apply it with a broad brush stroke.

It depends on how well engineered electrically the cable(s) are. A lot of high end cables are not engineered electrically very well, the designer opting instead for a preferred signature of his own, (and hopefully marketable) liking. It's my conclusion that cabling that falls in this camp will perform better as a Longer I/C-Shorter S/C system.

Cabling that has it's electrical parameters more suited for it's given application will perform better as a Shorter I/C-Longer S/C system.

Bottom line I suppose is know what your buying or using. That will most likely get you in the ball park for some kind expectation and whether or not the cabling will facilitate having your preferences met.

When all is to the enthusiast's sonic liking, the system is good and music is an emotional experience...this is good says me. When a system is amiss to one's preferences, music is forever and only an intellectual exercise. I don't think that's what music is intended for and, it seems in most instances, the enthusiast is forever swapping out gear...cables included.

Longer vs. shorter of whatever is not necessarily a right / wrong issue or a ticket to nirvana.

Hope that helps a bit.

Cheers!
Robert

the length "could" be dependent on the damping factor of the amplifer used...

One scenario where shorter is better .....

By the way, if you doubt what these cable manufacturers are telling you about lengths, should you believe everything else they tell you?

For the record, my cable manufacturer DID recommend I go with long interconnect and short speaker cable.

Same suggestion I got from Steve McCormack, Tube Research, Atma-Sphere and other reliable sources.

Shorter speaker cables are better than longer.

Shorter interconnects are also better than longer.

If you've got to go long with one or the other, there's no strong technical reason to go with long ICs (or vice versa). If you think one way is better than the other, use it--it can't hurt. If it's more convenient to go one way than the other, go for the convenient way--it probably can't hurt, either.

By the way, if you doubt what these cable manufacturers are telling you about lengths, should you believe everything else they tell you?

I agree with Justin_time, short speaker cables and long interconnects.

My interconnects are 36 feet from preamp to amps and no issues other than expense. However, it was MUCH less expensive than long speaker cable would have been.

This topic has come up regularly many times before. You may want to do a search on this to a get a pretty good spectrum of opinions and explanations.

My experience has been the opposite. I get better results with long interconnects (4 meters) and short speaker cables (6 feet).

I do not care to debate this issue and leave it to the EEs to explain why this is so or why I did the wrong thing. I have only my ears to rely on.