Which is better?

[Filterlab]

Mental blank;

I have monoblocks which can obviously be placed almost anywhere... Is it better to have longer speaker cables or longer interconnects? My head says speaker cables but for some reason I have a niggling idea that it's the reverse.

Anyone?

:)

[The Grand Wazoo]

It's often said by some of those who are supposed to know, that short speaker cables are better.
I guess your preamp would have to be up to it though, if you had too long a run of pre-power interconnect. Balanced mode would help reduce noise in longer runs.

Personally, I've got 5 metre pre - power cables & 3.7 metre speaker cables. My old configuration had 11 metres of interconnect though! No perceived problems for me there.

[Welder]

It’s one of those depends questions :eyebrows:
Depends on distance for each.
Balanced or unbalanced.
Cable types.
The list goes on.
Conventional wisdom has it that it’s better to have the amps close to the speakers and longer runs of interconnects. That may be okay for pro audio where balanced interconnects are used, not so sure for domestic unbalanced setups.

[greendriver]

I like longer speaker cables, but I also like longer interconnects, but which is better?

There's only one way to find out....(complete the phrase):punch::punch:

[magiccarpetride]

It's often said by some of those who are supposed to know, that short speaker cables are better.

The cable guy I know told me that when it comes to speaker cables, less than 2 meters can be iffy, due to RF. Not sure what to make of it, but I'm using 2 meter speaker cables, and they sound good.

[The Grand Wazoo]

The cable guy I know told me that when it comes to speaker cables, less than 2 meters can be iffy, due to RF.

.........and this is a guy who sells cable?
He'll probably also tell you that they must, at all costs, be the same length. That's another good way of selling you something that you don't necessarily need.

[Marco]

Hi Rob,

John's right... There are lots of variables to consider, some of which he's outlined. Balanced interconnects certainly suit long cable lengths, as signal loss is virtually non-existent.

If you choose the long interconnects/short speaker cable route by putting your monoblocks in close proximity to your speakers (probably my preferred option), then you have to consider your preamp's ability to drive long (single-ended) interconnects, if balanced is not an option, which not all preamps will be happy with.

Conversely, long lengths of speaker cable can upset some amps and cause some weird sonic effects, so I'm afraid it's a case of 'suck it and see', perhaps by road-testing the options first with some cheap as chips pro-cables, to see which approach works best in your system, before committing serious cash to something more exotic.

Good luck and let us know how you get on! :cool:

Marco.

P.S I'm moving this to The Artist's Palette, where all cable discussion should go ;)

[Marco]

It's often said by some of those who are supposed to know, that short speaker cables are better.
I guess your preamp would have to be up to it though, if you had too long a run of pre-power interconnect. Balanced mode would help reduce noise in longer runs.

Personally, I've got 5 metre pre - power cables & 3.7 metre speaker cables. My old configuration had 11 metres of interconnect though! No perceived problems for me there.

5 METRES?? Goodness knows what 11 metres was like! :eek:

What preamp were you using at the time, Chris?

Obviously that works fine in your system. My Croft hates long interconnects (sounding significantly less dynamic with them), so I use 0.5m lengths, wherever possible, and 1m maximum, otherwise. It's also much cheaper that way, particularly if you're using anything remotely exotic! ;)

Speaker cable-wise, my VDHs are a 6m pair, which causes the copper amp no problems whatsoever, as neither do the 14m (Van Damme) pair I use when connecting the Celestion 15XRs downstairs in the lounge, to the system upstairs in my listening room.

Marco.

[The Grand Wazoo]

Well my SP8 could probably drive some speakers without even bothering with a power amp! My sources & preamp are in a separate room from the power amps & speakers, though, you may recall. I reckon that doing this to keep the valves & turntable away from the speakers gives me a far bigger benefit than anything I may lose by having long cables. Having solid floors & walls over 2 feet thick can be pretty useful & it also means I don't have to spend too much money on overpriced coffee tables(!)

[DSJR]

Looking objectively for a while - don't click off just yet..... It can also be down to impedance matching and the ability of the line driver to drive long lengths of cable imo.

My AVI preamp was designed from the off to have incredibly low output impedance (5 Ohms is claimed as against 2-400 for the Croft from memory). The class A output amps also seem to be high current devices (and run bloody hot) and their recommendation was to place the power amps as close to the speakers as possible, keeping the speaker cables very short to maintain amplifier damping factor high. For driving active ATC's at the time with their built-in amp packs, this was perfect (and still is in all honesty).

My Croft preamp will drive a few metres of cable it seems, but 10m of cable into a 10K input impedance on the little ATC's was too much for it, the sound "falling over" and going wimpish and soft in my situation here. A remote valve amp with half a Meg or so wouldn't have been an issue, as Tom Fletcher used a Croft Mega Micro into the huge OTL mono amps Glenn made and the speaker cables were a couple of metres compared to several metres of the connecting leads.

The capacitance of the interconnects should also be as low as possible I've been told and modern mic cable from the better suppliers is fine for this in all reality IMO.

Sorry Marco. I do appreciate the fact that one can try both ways out to see which suits best, but the above is accepted wisdom as I understand it to be. Your Tannoys may not mind either way, but the Ditton 66's might, as I understand they're nominal 4 Ohms?

[Rare Bird]

I just use what ever length plonking my stereo where i want it, works out to.. :lolsign:

[Marco]

No worries, Dave. I'm sure that's good advice for Rob. It won't do any harm to experiment though with some Belden or Van Damme cable, as it costs buttons.

Neither the 66s nor 15XRs, with the copper amp, seem to mind the 14m of cable either side it takes to connect the former to the latter when the former are downstairs in the lounge :)

I've never tried the Lockwoods with very long speaker cable lengths (as they've always lived in my listening room), so don't know how they'd react.

Marco.

[DSJR]

You devil you - bloomin' 66's............. :)

[Welder]

Hmm, I don’t imagine many people know what their amps can manage by way of impedance, let alone know the capacitance per metre of their speaker cable, including connections.
Some amps are quite happy with high capacitance speaker cables; some aren’t.
I’m with Marco on this, balanced interconnects, yep fine, go as long as you need, unbalanced keep em short 0.5m or less, particularly between Dac and Pre and pre and power.
Imo heavily screened interconnects fare better over longer runs, but if I was to have dual monos feeding speakers I would want balanced pre to power anyway.
Not much point in spending good money on cables if you then go and ruin it all by getting the lengths all wrong and mismatched impedances in the chain.
Just my opinion.

[DSJR]

This was probably why AVI amps tended to be sold as sets, pre and power. The pre (a late S2000MP+P) was designed to drive long runs in any case, so in this instance, maybe I was spoiled, but the Audiolab 8000Q was also designed to do this and probably sounded sweeter when doing so for all I remember.

I agree regarding balanced, but for normal minimal domestic use, I do argue against all that electronics (or iron-n-windings) added in... I remember the levinson ML28 preamp was fully balanced from input to output from memory, needing VERY closely matched components I remember. Nice preamp too and available for less than a grand still I think.

[Welder]

Course, just to complicate things there are balanced outputs and then properly balanced amps as I have found out :doh:

[hifi_dave]

The Levinson amps are/were properly and fully balanced with each channel split into positive and negative to drive each half of the signal waveform. This has benefits in the sound but is diffiicult and very expensive to accomplish properly as each of the amps has to perform identically to the others.

This is why the majority of balanced outputs/inputs are done by an IC or transformer and often sound worse than the single ended option.

As for driving long runs of incon, say over 4-5 mtrs, many pre-amps will not give of their best as the output driver stage is not up to the job. All you can do is suck it and see...:scratch:

[Barry]

It is always best to position the power amp close to the speakers and use short speaker cables. This is because the loop resistance of the speaker cable appears in series with the output impedance of the amplifier, thus reducing the damping factor, or the ability of the amplifier to control the speaker (or if you like, to 'stop the tail wagging the dog').

The disadvantage of course is that then the connections between the pre- and power amplifier are long and the capacitance of the cable becomes an issue. For most modern amplifiers, especially solid-state, the output impedance of the pre- is very low whilst the input imput impedance is high so problems don't occur. Quad preamps, the 33 and 44, have a comparatively high source impedance of 1KOhm, but even then the maximum interconnect length is 30m (assuming a reasonable cable capacitance of 60pF/m). More modern preamps have source impedances of less than 100Ohm.

Obviously the best way to go is to use balanced lines between pre- and power amp, however only a few systems support this, though it is becoming more prevalent.

In my own system I use long and unequal speaker cables (6m and 16m respectively) and have had no problems, though I am now moving towards a system which will place the power amps (monoblocks) behind each speaker with balanced lines feeding them.

[magiccarpetride]

.........and this is a guy who sells cable?
He'll probably also tell you that they must, at all costs, be the same length. That's another good way of selling you something that you don't necessarily need.

No, he's the guy who's into cables, that's all. Makes his living via other channels.