Whats wrong with short cables?

To make it real simple, you don't need to worry unless you're aiming to use 20...30' of speaker wire length.

Most of the commercial or so-called audiophile calbe manufacturers do not provide a reactance of wire. It requires an engineering signal analysis through the responce measured by oscilloscope at particular calibrated freequency. It's not just you can measure it presicely with DMM that has capacitance or inductance scales. It's the one you should measure depending on freequency or group of tested freequencies to make your conclusion. In case with audio applications you'll just have to assume that it realy doesn't matter or every audio equipment should be made not to proccess any RF in the signal path.

In all other cases you should refer to length, current and gauge neccessary for the best signal transfer between amp and speakers. Another words are if you're planning to get longer speaker wire length than you'll probably need to increase the gauge.

The shorter the better, within reason. You don't want cables stretched as taunt as guitar strings now. You also don't want to coil cable, as this will increase inductance. It's best to tailor the length to the application. Have enough slack as to not cause tension on the connectors, but remember, shorter is better.

Regards,
John

The conventional wisdom is to keep all cables as short as possible. The contrary theory is espoused by Ron Bauman in the context of his Omega Mikro cables. His experimentation has confirmed, to his ears, that his cables sound best at a length of at least 8 feet. There is some theory behind this, but the real test comes from critical listening. I've spoken with Lloyd Walker, who sells the Omega Mikro cables, and Lloyd says that his own listening tests with different lengths of this cable confirm what the designer says about this particular design. This may be true of other cables, but this is the only specific instance of which I'm aware.

Unless you have a specific recommendation from the manufacturer, keeping all cables as short as practical is a pretty good rule of thumb.