Speaker Cable Length

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.

My experience on the Goertz cables is to stick with the MI-2's instead of the MI-3's. Those were the exact cables that i referenced in my above post. Keep in mind that you would be adding even more capacitance to an already capacitive load. Either way, i'm sure that a zobel network would help out your installation. This would help to stabilize your amp feeding the e-stat's as a general rule. It would be most effective on systems using e-stat's and widebandwidth amps. I would also check out Nelson Pass' rant on cables at www.passlabs.com under "articles". He did some research and measurements on cables quite a while ago. Using his Dayton Wright ESL's and the specific amps that he was testing, he found that this specific installation worked best with very light gauge zip cord type wires. Their natural resistance and inductance acted as a slight buffer to the e-stat's capacitive nature and helped to balance out the load that the amplifier saw. Like i said before, every installation is different and will require experimentation. Sean
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Jim, I don't think you will get much benefit from shortening the Midnights by a third. They are not tough to drive and certainly not by the Mesa. The Goertz could be a problem over this length given its capacitiance, which makes it a harder call, but I have a feeling the Mesa is up to the task. Dekay, long ICs are usually only recommended between pre and power because preamps are usually designed to do just this. Few DACs are designed to be up to the task, but there are some exceptions. Long digital ICs are OK only if using ST-type cables - which are incredibly cheap and so not a bad idea.