Speaker Cables, One side longer- bad idea?

There are two issues that come to mind. First of all the electrical properties of speaker cable ARE to some extent length dependant and varying those parameters can effect how the amp interacts with the speakers. This is less of an issue in a 5.1 set up between the front pair and back pair since close matching is only needed with each stereo pair (the sound is really mixed as two stereo mixes plus center channel). Front to back balance will be more related to your position relative to the speaker. I agree that the phase issue is less pressing although the ear can resolve very tiny phase differences for sound localization (the comparison of the source at each ear allows an order of magnitude more resolution than either ear could accomplish alone), however since you will not be seated in the EXACT center and you may have an assymettrical room this is unlikely to make a great difference. However, different lengths within a stereo pair is IMHO a bad idea because of the resistance/capacitance issue.

Oh, I went back and read the beginning of your first post Bwhite. Attribution?

Attribution: I am not certain who wrote the document although it is as I stated, "interesting reading". Audiogon's new forum format doesn't allow for placing a URL or a link inside of a post so...I was unable to do that as a means to send readers to the actual online document.

I am at work now and the bookmark is saved on my home computer. I will post the URL this evening when I get home so that others can read the original document and indulge in some of the other rants on the webpage.

So this means I can't move my head anymore when I listen. Not one millionth of a centimetre, I gather, Well, hum... Let's see, how about a head vise (no not lice) with laser level type things to make sure the well seated (and heeled) audiophile does not move and consequently lose any of the phase accuracy of his interconnects, speakers or of his equally expensive (or more expensive is even better) speaker wires. Never mind subwoofers, there's nothing down there any ways, but 12 K cables get the imaging just right, not to mention inner detail and the greater distance between musicians in the orchestra. Magnificent, great I can hear the rosin on the bow now... it's, it's, it's in phase! Glory be to the small, dishonest, inefficient manufacturers for in these anti-scientific times, they shall rule the biz.

I may be wrong, but I always thought the standard argument supporting equal cable length had less to do with signal delay as it did with inductance, reactance, and capacitance (those terms could be wrong, it's been a few years since I stumbled through E&M). I know that for direct current a solid conductor with uniform cross section has resistance proportional to length (and inverself proportional to cross section area). As such a 60% increase in length seems like it would have fairly measurable effects on the current. I know that this is a not quite correct, complete oversimplification of the argument, but I think it's along those lines. Anyway, the final measure of course is what you can hear. Perhaps a good experiment would involve getting a ridiculously different lengths of zip wire and seeing if that makes a difference.