Good grief, how is it that you've found "several" dealers willing to feed you this kind of crap in order to help nothing but their bottom lines? Is it really that bad out there these days? Forget the wacky explanations you've been offered by these either cynical or ignorant dealers (no matter what the conductor material), however most everything stated in this thread is right on. You'll be best off sonically -- at least in theory if not always detectably -- and in your pocketbook, if you buy the shortest interconnect length that will COMFORTABLY make the connection (the caveat about resaleability for lengths under 1m notwithstanding). That means no sharp bends in the cables. As has been said above, consider the flexibility to place your new cables between various components, not all of which may be adjacent to one another, before making the committment to a shorter length, unless you have a very simple system like one source plus an integrated. Most often there isn't a significant advantage (sonic or budgetary) to investing in a length under 1m, unless excess length would actually create a routing problem.
