Do speaker wires have to be the same length for each speaker?

Some speaker wires are custom cut and terminated/soldered and I guess if it was expensive enough you could save a few bucks with different length cables.

However I have OCD when it comes to my stereo with everything being lined up perfectly, no cables touching each other or the floor, etc., so for me they should be equal because there is some electrically measurable difference with different lengths that is not audible, but still "there". That's enough for me. I am sure we've all bought something that was supposedly better that we paid extra for that is not audible or detectable as an improvement individually.

I've got about 200 ft of good 12 AWG cable you can have for the price of shipping. Some is cut in length. I have two systems set up with it. It works very well, I was running it in about 30 foot lengths. Ask and ye shall have. White color.

I thought it always reads cut the speaker cables the same length. So if I have one speaker next the stereo and the other across the room.You can have one 3ft length and the other at the length you need ?

That's the UFC bout portion of this discussion, @limomangus .

Yes, you can have a pair of speaker cables of different lengths to a stereo set.  Technically, the % difference in electrical parameters of two different lengths of speaker cable is very small.  So there's arguments on both sides on whether it's audible or not.

For me, I wouldn't be able to discern the difference - too busy listening to the music.  However - the difference is still there (audible or not), so why not make them the same length if you easily can?  But also again, for custom installs or other extenuating circumstances which make it hard to keep both lengths the same - cut away!

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