Speaker cable vs. interconnect cable length

Thanks everyone for your advice. It looks like short speaker cables (4' to 8' in length) and long interconnects (18' to 25' in length) is the concensus here. I hope the sound is not affected by the long interconnect length. FYI, I will be running interconnects to three monoblock amps for the L/C/R front speakers.

I recently went through this same debate, and went with 40' balanced interconnects. I was nervous when I fired it up, as I had a fair amount of time in running the wire and terminating the ends. The good news is that it sounds great, not noticeably different than 3' interconnects.

- Eric

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Icsi,
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If you are going to go with long IC's, you should get balanced interconnects.
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Just get decent cables. I wouldn't worry so much about interconnect length. In my experience, a 3ft IC will be noticeably better than one that is 20ft. But it's not like the sound deteriorated into something unbearable. In fact, you'll probably lose a bit of dynamics and sound a bit rolled off "in comparison" that's all.

Well, the common wisdom is long ICs/short speaker cabling. This is true if you have unlimited money, but long high-end ICs will be prohibitively expensive. My experience is that using a 1-meter pair of very high caliber IC (like Stealth Indras or Kubala Sosna Emotions or PAD Dominus's to name a few that I have tried & enjoyed) is a better route even if you need a long pair of midgrade but respectable speaker cables (I use Cardas Golden Ref).
Again, this is just my experience.