Speaker Cable Length - Effect on Sound

I went from 7' to 18" in the same cable, Stealth Ultimate Ribbon. This is high enough gauge for 7', no obvious problem there. But I was brought MUCH closer to the music with the 18" cables. Unfortunately, this short a length calls for monoblock power amps, for stereo listening. If you can plan to have monoblocks in the future, near or more distant, you won't be disappointed by the improvement--if my experience is anything to go by.

I have a variant (as usual) question. If you are using REALLY short cables (like 2 feet with my monoblocks), does the speaker cable quality matter as much ?

I also have 20 foot MITs. They claim their terminator box tweeking compensates for the length. They sound good to me, and a lot better than the 18 foot ones they replaced, so I assume it is true.