50' speaker or 50' interconnect?


My equipment rack is at the back of my room and therefore I currently use 50' speaker cables. I have tried long XLR cables instead (moving the amps up by the speakers) but haven't had good results (perhaps due to capacitance issues with the cables).

I'm looking for suggestions for interconnects that can handle long runs.

I'd also be interested if anyone else uses a speaker cable run as long as me.

Thanks.
madfloyd
I'm using about 35 ft of balanced Anti-Cable interconnects from the preamp to the amp with about 4 feet of speaker cable. Sounds great....no noise, big, wide, deep soundstage, etc.
If you are running balanced interconnects, you need to make sure your equipment is also truly balanced to reap the benefits of balanced. An XLR jack does not mean truly balanced, necessarily
What preamp are you using, and if you can readily determine it, what is its output impedance?

The higher the output impedance, the more critical cable capacitance will become. The symptom of cable capacitance that is too high in relation to output impedance would be upper treble rolloff, and its associated subjective effects (sluggish transients, dull sound, reduced ambience, etc.).

I can do some quick calculations for the Mogami once I know the output impedance of the preamp.

Here is a link at which you can purchase a 2534-based 50 foot length of terminated Mogami Gold Studio xlr cable, for $98.95, from B&H Photo Video (an excellent seller). They have a 15 day return policy:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/318716-REG/Mogami_GOLD_STUDIO_50_Gold_Studio_XLR_Male.html#features

Blue Jeans xlr cable, based on Belden 1800F, has a bit under half the capacitance of the Mogami, but does not provide the Mogami's quad conductor configuration which improves noise rejection. Some of the higher end cables, such as some Cardas cables, also have considerably less capacitance than the Mogami's, but of course will be very expensive in that length. So I second the suggestion of Mogami unless the output impedance of your preamp is particularly high at high frequencies.

Regards,
-- Al
Hmm, I would have tended to run the speaker wires longer for fear that longer runs of low level signal wires are more subject to noise and interference from external sources. I guess not so much if shielded.

BTW, I have speakers up to about 15-20 yards or so away as the crow flies connected via standard guage commercial in-wall speaker wire to my system and I do not hear any ill effects compared to the pair sitting just a few feet away and connected via higher end 12' Audioquest cv6 wires, so running longer lengths of speaker wire is not something I fear based on experience.