wiring monoblocks to speakers

Ted,
I have monoblocks and recently positioned an equipment rack between the speakers with the monos between the rack and speakers so no cable is over 1M. Before that, I took advantage of positioning the monoblocks next to the speakers and used longer ICs and shorter SCs. I recommend your longer ICs be shielded to reduce EMI/RFI pickup. Some will disagree but it is my opinion shielding is generally a good idea for all ICs. Most commercial ICs are shielded.

There is no universal answer, as it depends on various technical characteristics of the particular components, as well as on the characteristics of the cables, and the preferences of the listener. Those are among the reasons that opinions and reported experiences on this question tend to diverge.

In your particular case my guess is that the most significant of those variables is likely to be the fact that both of the speakers you mentioned have impedances which are low, in the vicinity of 4 ohms or less across much of the audible spectrum. They also both have a significant impedance fluctuation in the upper mid-range region. Those characteristics tend to favor the short speaker cable approach, assuming that the goal is to minimize the sonic effects of all of the cables that are involved.

As Rrog indicated, it is desirable to drive long interconnects with components having low output impedance. The preamps you mentioned have output impedances that are neither very low nor very high. You can minimize or eliminate the sonic effects that may result from the interaction between those output impedances and the capacitance of the interconnect cables by choosing cables having low capacitance per unit length (e.g., 25 pf per foot or less, the lower the better). Also, I second the suggestion of avoiding unshielded cables in this situation.

Regards,
-- Al

One example that is supported by (or supports?) Al's always succinct, useful, and thorough advise:

I use 5m runs of extremely low capacitance RCA IC's (Nordost) between high input sensitivity (.75V) tube mono blocs and a high quality resistor based pot passive preamp; fed by a very high gain phono stage (EAR). Very short lengths (1.5') of Siltech speaker cables connect the amps to fairly high efficiency, 6 ohm load (nominal) speakers. Works great!

Sorry, but I don't agree. There was no direct nastiness in Jmcgrogan2's post. His perspective is entirely reasonable.

Yes, but that's because short reponses closer to the OP is always better than long, low capacity responses between posters.