differing wire lengths to speakers

devilkazuya · 31 Aug 2006 at 08:49

when i was at a hi fi shop yesterday, they person who worked there was telling me that when i buy speakers from them, that i should buy an equal length of speaker wire for each speaker, even if in my room the amp would be to one side of the room, closer to one of the speakers.

He says that the one with the shorter length of wire would end up sounding better than the longer length, if i bought differing lengths, due to difference in impedence/resistance etc due to length of wire.

Is this true?

Bill101 · 31 Aug 2006 at 09:10

there may well be a measurable difference in the resistance of the longer wire ,but it would have to be a vast difference in length to be able to hear anything.

Dr House · 31 Aug 2006 at 09:43

yep as far as I know both cables should be the same length

Dr.EM · 31 Aug 2006 at 09:59

Scientifically, it shan't make any difference unless the difference is huge. The change in resistance over any reasonable length will attenuate or alter the signal no more than the tolerance of matching between an ordinary pair of speakers. The length does not introduce a delay either at any reasonable amount, as electric travels so much faster than sound, an extra few metres on one side has the effect of moving your head a millimetre from the centre. I probably wouldn't worry about it, how much difference in length are we talking? Bear in mind the Hi-Fi shop will make more profit selling you the extra cable

devilkazuya · 31 Aug 2006 at 10:56

yeah, i think it is like £8 or £11 per metre or something. Should i buy from them (sevenoak)? or are there much better speaker wires out there that i could get for the same price or less?

Ugley_Matt · 31 Aug 2006 at 11:34

There is much better wire for a whole lot less than that.

Super cheap, Twin and Earth Mains flex from Homebase,B&Q ets

Cat5 network cable : 3 lengths braided together.

Highly recommened by a lot of people who dont believe the snakeoil arguments of the hi-fi world regarding cabling and would rather spend their money on other stuff.
All you really need is a good cross section of copper wire, eveything else is just fluff.
www.avforums.com is a good place to get advice
http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/setup/interconnects/DIYSpeakerCablesp1.html
Good test of lots of cables incuding diy ones,

Dr.EM · 31 Aug 2006 at 12:12

Frequenctly reccomended, the Van Damme professional audio flex at under £2 a metre from a competitor. Best get the 1.5mm or 2.5mm (possibly), 4mm will be too big, there is a suprising amount of copper in these cables, quite thin insulation. It is pointless to try and fix massive cables as the connection will probably be poorer by doing so, and that is the most critical part.

Oh yeah, another point. If you have equal lengths of cable but only need a short amount on one side, what will you do with the extra length? Chances are you'll coil it up, but by doing this you make a small inductor which will create a larger resistance at higher frequencies. Ever notice how on those extension reels, you must unroll them fully first? It's the same reason, but in them, with the level of power they can be required to supply, the inductive resistance may reach a point where the losses create a lot of heat in the cable. That is at 50Hz, at 20khz max for audio, only a small coil may be required to cause noticebable attenuation of highs. Just a thought.