Does unequal speaker wire length matter?


My amp is not located centrally between my speakers. Due to the layout of my listening area, the amp is about 10 feet from one speaker, and adjacent to the other - and this will not change. I am currently using two 4-meter cables, but one of them need only be about 1 meter. I am looking to upgrade my cables, could I get away with unequal lengths and save a good bit of money?
ddcrews
I was wondering the same thing again, and I know most audiophiles will say it is a no no, but if I do not really do critical listening, can I reallyhear the difference? Has anyone tried different lengths and actually heard the difference? Most don;t even have room treatments so how much issue can this really cause?

Please let us know your experience with different lenghts and Happy Listening.
While I wouldn't bet money I could hear a difference, I agree their could be some resistance issues , and factor in if you try an upgrade your speaker cables in the future, you will have a "tough sell" on your old un equal length pair of speaker cables.
Give me a frigging break ! What BS advice. It will
not make any difference, and will definitely not be
perceived by the human ear. At what speed does the signal
travel down the wire ? Perhaps 0.5c ~ 0.85, where c=speed of light, 186 000 miles/sec. That is the signal travels at
102300 miles/sec ~ 1581000 miles/sec. Even if one wire is longer than the other one by 10 feet, the difference in time for the signal to arrive at the speaker would be 0.00000002 secs. Damn, you boys have incredible hearing !
Not every speaker cable manufacturer states that each leg of the cable be the same length. Alpha-Core states on its web site that their Goertz speaker cable does not have to be of equal length on each leg. My own personal experience has been that as long as the cables are relatively short (less than 15 feet), you will hear no audible difference between unequal lengths, PROVIDED the speaker cable has relatively low impedance.

High impedance in speaker cables causes frequency shifts, so it is possible that some "golden ears" could hear this frequency change with high impedance speaker cables. Of course, if a speaker cable has a high impedance, it's not particularly well suited to its task, and you'd be better off with another kind that follows good electrical design principles.
Timing will be off? Unless the disparity is great, you will never hear a difference. Keep them the same length and avoid pangs of audiophile neurosis. It's all in your head anyway.