Speaker cable length.
I have a small weekend cabin in the country. I have a modest system there consisting of a set of Polk Audio Monitor 7 tower speakers, an NAD C316 BEE integrated, Schiit Modi 2 DAC and a Denon radio receiver. Sounds much better than you might expect.
Anyway, we recently got a fireplace installed. This means that there will be a speaker on each side of the fireplace with the components on the right side of the fireplace. That means the right speaker is within 2-3 feet of the amp/components. The cable for the left speaker will run under the house from the amp and then back into the house on the left of the fireplace because I don't want it on the floor in front of the hearth. This will require about 16’ of speaker cable.
Will the difference (16’ of cable to the left speaker vs maybe 4’ to the right one) make a difference on a modest system like this? If so, what to do about it? I certainly don’t want 16’ of cable piled on the floor on the right.
Thanks for any input.
P.S.: I have good quality bulk speaker cable from Transparent if that makes any difference.
I will play around with it. I'll try to get the longer cable as short as possible and the shorter cable at 5-6 feet. That way I might get the disparity down to 6' vs 12'. I do want to get the speaker cable off the nomex wiring. Will the nomex interfere just being close or would they have to be touching to cause an issue. |
Hi @n80 I have a family room system set up exactly as yours, with one speaker on each side of the fireplace and the components on the middle of the side wall. The long run is 10 feet longer than the short run. I dwelled on this same question, and after speaking with several cable manufacturers got their same reply, that the different length would not be audible. I chose to make my ables from Furutech FS Alpha 36 wire and Furutech spades from VH Audio. I left my homemade 10 g copper wires to the low end and ran the Alpha 36 to the high inputs. Sounds great and no extra cable under the floor, and saved cost over extra wire as well. |
"I do want to get the speaker cable off the nomex wiring. Will the nomex interfere just being close or would they have to be touching to cause an issue." - It is a good idea to keep the signal cables away from the power cables (including Romex uninsulated wire) at least an inch or two. If you have to cross, try to do it a 90 degree angle, do not parallel them. |
@n80 This falls under the rule of don't sweat the small stuff. I've had vastly different lengths of speaker cabling and could never tell the difference. In fact one time I coiled one up about 50 feet of 10ga and intentionally put the tweeter cabling on top of it. Turned off the tweeter amp and the mids amp and blasted just the base amp (>500w per ch) and zilch, zero, nada coming out of the tweeters. Cut it or don't cut it, only your brain will know. Regards, barts |
