Aphex Twin

I am going to purchase a pair of speaker wire, but since one speaker is closer than the other speaker, I want to get one short wire (6 feet) and one longer wire (12 feet). Are there any negative consequences to this? Will one sound any different than the other at all? Will I be punished? The speaker wire I am looking at costs like $120 a feet and I don't want to waste 6 feet of speaker wire if I don't have to.

audrey

In general it is best to match the lengths of the speaker wires. Running different lengths will not damage your equipment; however, wire length does impact impedance and can affect the dampening factor. That said it is unlikely that many people would perceive an audible difference—especially with a disparity of 6ft. I personally am too anal to run different lengths; my advice is to let your conscience and your pocket book be your guide.

broadwayblue

just out of curiosity what components will you be connecting to these $120/foot cables? you must be putting together a sick system to be spending at least $2160 on speaker wire for two speakers. now i could be wrong...but i'm thinking you can get nearly the same performance for about 1/4th the cash.

gotapex

The resistance difference on 6' worth of wire should be negligable, as long as the wire is of sufficient gauge. How thick is it?

Electricity moves through copper near the speed of light, much faster than sound moves through the air. So in terms of the sound being delayed because of 6' of wire, you can merely move your head 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000001" closer towards the speaker with the shorter wire to compensate.

drmoze

gotapex sums up the 'delay' effect pretty nicely! AT, tell you what, I'll give you a nice pair of matched-length 12 gauge wire for 'only' $1000, and it'll sound great. Seriously, *any* 12-14 gauge wire at those shore lengths will not impair your speaker sound at all. Not one audible whit. I hope the $120/ft" was a typo and that you meant "$1.20/ft" (which is still on the pricey side). I got perfectly fine 10 gauge stranded heavy-jacketed OFC wire for well under $1/ft and that is overkill IMO. (It was cheap and available.) Better to save your $$$ for better speakers, a new amp, etc.... (Again IMO, but I have to work for a living and I like to get vallue out of each dollar I spend, in general.)

jumbojp

If you can afford $120/ft speaker cable, I say jump down a tier in price and get a 12ft length of each. If my calculations are correct that would still leave you in the $90/ft range which is more that reasonable.

I like to keep my lengths equal across all three front channels. However I use 12AWG cable that I bought for $2.75/40 foot roll and that included gold plated pins


Take a look at www.cobaltcable.com

The cables there are very nice, and a great value. I use a few myself and will be switching over the rest as money permits.