Cables from amp to preamp or longer speaker cables…

With few exceptions, it is better to use longer interconnects (RCA or balanced) and shorter loudspeaker cables.

 i value the quality of the XLR cables I use, they make a big difference.  I am not sure they make the ones I like in that length.  

Longer speaker cables are common and for me the cheaper solution for the best sound. 

This would be ok if I had my rig set up behind the speakers but I want to sit on that sofa at the far end of the room (12 feet away) and have my Benchmark DAC 3 HGC beside me so I can plug headphones in occasionally……do I buy long speaker cables (probably expensive), or would I place my amp behind the speakers and run long cable from that to the preamp beside the sofa and if so would this long cable create any issues?

Keep the preamp at it’s location and run the long XLRs as others mentioned.

You can call Benchmark and ask them about the best XLRs, and I suspect that they will tell you that the guitar center ones are fine. @atmasphere mentions that XLR are designed to be immune… and I believe that he uses Mogami Starquad or Cardas, or something pretty inexpensive.

Keeping the speaker cables short is never a crime.

Apparently it’s important to use quality speaker cables - I was a bit skeptical about this and thought it was all sales BS until I read a thread on the “cables” forum where everybody was in agreement that quality speaker cables are very important…..is this the case also with the XLRs

I would not take the testimony of the converted as being a metric for truth.
And the cable deniers are in violent disagreement.

However, short speaker cables do less harm than longer ones, and lower capacitance IC do less harm than higher.

On XLRs the pro-sound industry went to those a half century ago. You will always get people fighting a Joan of Arc battle on how much the interconnects matter… but balanced cable they are pretty well established in studios and venues… since around the Apollo days is not before.

It is argued to the point of tiresomeness as, I cannot hear their system from afar and it is all subjective.

So I almost always just use Mogami and call it a day.
Probably Blue Jeans are a good choice, and lay a rope out to get the length figured out… with all the bends and elevation changes.

or would I place my amp behind the speakers and run long cable from that to the preamp beside the sofa

^this^