Short speaker cable recommendation

The great thing about short speaker wire runs is you can get, if you so choose, a more-expensive-per-foot wire. For instance, when I was using a balanced-out pre and balanced-in mono power amps, I used long balanced inter-connects and one foot long pure silver speaker cables from Kimber. Silver is expensive, but with only one foot runs not so bad.

Shorter cables do not always sound better, depends on cable, equipment, preferences...

While I agree that shorter speaker cables may not always sound better, certainly from the standpoint of subjective preference, I would add that nearly all speaker cable EFFECTS are proportional to length, and therefore DIFFERENCES between speaker cables will become smaller as length decreases.

Putting aside whatever effects connectors may have, the only speaker cable effect I can think of that would not be proportional to length (although it would still vary as a function of length) is the possibility that by acting as an antenna the cable could conceivably cause RFI (radio frequency interference) to be picked up and injected into the feedback loop of the amplifier, if it has a feedback loop. Which might under some circumstances, with some amplifiers and in some RFI environments, have audible consequences. Although I suspect that kind of effect is unlikely to be significant in most circumstances, and apart from shielding that may be provided in some speaker cables it would have little or no predictability with respect to cable type or price even if it did occur.

Good luck. Regards,
-- Al

Cable should be at least 2 FT for best sound.

Whether or not shorter speaker cables sound better than longer ones, two facts about them are indisputable:
1- They're cheaper! Especially if you're bi-wiring (one long pair of inter-connects is cheaper than two long pairs of speaker cables).
2- The don't sound worse! Remember when at least one wire company claimed cables had to be of at least a certain length before they sounded good? That kind of baloney didn't help the cable industry's credibility.