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Longer speaker cables or interconnects

I have a feeling that this may be a topic that has already been discussed to death, but the only thread I’ve found so far is one at Stereophile.

I will I’ll be moving into my new home with a new semi dedicated semi anechoic listening room, and I am just realizing now that maybe the 25 ft speaker cable runs vs the 3 to 4 ft interconnect runs that I was used to in my old NYC loft for decades is maybe not the optimal ratio.

I presume that that I don’t want a long interconnect between the turntable and the preamp.

I’m looking for various points of views and justifications for them. Remember, one caveat is that I’m the kind of guy who will spend only a moderate amount of dollars for interconnects and speaker cable. Thank you all.
128x128unreceivedogma
unreceivedogma's avatar
unreceivedogma OP
992 posts
 
jperry,

thanks for the link but I’m not going to spend $2800 for amp platforms for the same reason I’m not gonna spend a lot of money for cables.

My whole system cost cost me no more than $17,000. I prefer to find a way to get 90% of performance of a $200K system while spending 10% of the money. I am more or less at that spot, if I include what I just spent on the listening room.

eg my solution for isolating the table from vibrations - rather than spend $1000s on an isolation platform was to simply bolt the platform that the table was sitting on to a 18” thick brick wall. I will do that for the table at the new space. I also kept the dust cover down when playing music, as the arm and cartridge could sometimes generate feedback from the speakers.
jsandman
12 posts
 
I'll defer to an expert whose advice tends to make a lot of sense because he justifies his claims either with measurable scientific fact, or from his extensive experience in the industry.  Plus I've learned a lot from watching his video series and fact-checking some of his claims.  For your needs, I recommend watching the video in its 7-minute entirety.  (Actually you can skip the first 1:30 without missing any relevant information if you want.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5WFZx6-2hA
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
“i have akways had trouble getting slamming but clean bass.”

That’s indicative of lack of isolation for electronics. Also, while the wall is often a better location than the floor, especially trampoline floors and upper floors, the problem remains the entire building structure is shaking, including the walls.

Everything should be isolated, including cables. - old audiophile axiom
cd318
2,636 posts
 
It’s not an issue. Even cables running thousands of miles exhibit minimum loss or signal or time distortion as long as there are no breaks and freedom from interference.

The speed of a signal through a cable is not far off the speed of light.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
cd318
It’s not an issue. Even cables running thousands of miles exhibit minimum loss or signal or time distortion as long as there are no breaks.

>>>>>>Strawman argument. The AC power is not the audio signal. The AC signal doesn’t travel all the way from the power company when you turn the ON switch. It’s available instantaneously. The voice signal degrades over distance due to a number of things, repreaters, vibration, etc. The standard for analog signals over transmission lines is lower than the audiophile standard. Bandwidth for voice is very limited, for example. Besides if the voice goes overseas it probably goes over satellite, which would be a 50,000 mile round trip in itself.

cd318
The speed of a signal through a cable is not far off the speed of light.

>>>>>You think you can sneak one by the goalie? 🏒 Vibration is continuous. The only way the audio signal can escape the influence of vibration is to travel instantaneously. Faster than the speed of light. Which photons have not learned to do yet. The audio signal travels very fast yet the song lasts several minutes. It’s a sitting duck. 🦆
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