Speaker Cable Length

Here's to more money down the drain in search of the magical length. I'm game. Too bad that I just sold 36' of extra Kimber Kable, I could have had a field day.

I reckon the gains from shorter lengths are best described in terms of greater immediacy and better extension both top and bottom. Some amps and cables will be hugely affected, others not so much - the former happens with high inductance cables as suggested above, but even with high-end cables that have high capacitance, but this still differs with power amp. If you list your cable and amp Jim, it might be possible to be more accurate.

Thanks for all of the advice, guys. Much to ponder and play with. And, I suspect more money going out to see if there's any difference in my system.

Redkiwi, I'm running 15 foot Audioquest Midnight from a Mesa Baron to CLS's. I'm also wondering about cable going to my soon to be hooked up Kinergertics SW800 subs -- amp is yet to be determined (another thread to come). The AQ is working very well with my speakers. I was planning on trying the Alpha Core Goertz MI2 or MI3 (depending on length) as I have heard good reports on these cables with esl's -- not unhappy -- quite the opposite, in fact -- but just want to try something else to determine changes.

Thanks for the advice.

As has been discussed in many threads, if you have audio rack on side wall use long ICs to amp between speakers, and short speaker cables, cheaper total cost and better sound. I would not go shorter than 6ft on speaker cables for the simple reason that they loose resale value if you want to upgrade. I personally would stick with 6-8ft speaker cables and not worry about the 2-4% of sound I am missing by not using 3ft speaker cables.

I had looked into increasing the length of my IC's (in order to decrease my speaker cable runs) and was told that it would not be a good idea by two different manufacturers. The difference though between mine and Sam's setup is that I would have been running long IC's that carry the digital/analog signal prior to it reaching the preamp section. I could have either increased my digital cable from transport to DAC of the analog IC's from DAC to amp. I have two integrated amps and do not have seperate pre/power amps. Does this seem right, or is anyone using long IC's such as these in combination with shorter speaker cables with good results? By long IC's runs I am talking 15' - 20'. Both of the people that I contacted lost a sale by giving me this advice and I know that they were sincere.