The long and the short of it is ...... err, what exactly?

Hello all.

For the benefit of my current customers and in the hope of providing practical guidance for future customers and interested ‘civilians’ alike – I am gathering evidence to support and with equal vigour to oppose the view that long interconnects + short loudspeaker cables (between preamp and 2 x mono power amps) offers a superior sound to the more conventional short interconnects + long loudspeaker lines approach.

What I'm hoping for is practical information regarding the changes (either way) and if those changes translated into consistent sonic improvements.

I’ve seen the ‘theory’ debated elsewhere but I haven't been unable to source observations from anyone (other than myself, and I don’t count in this) who has experimented in this way.

All and any observations will be gratefully received, not just by me but from others to whom I might act as a conduit re this.

Thank you

PS

Saw Steve Cropper in concert last night in little ‘ol Edmonton in North London. No wonder he’s often voted the finest guitarist alive today. This guy knows all about Pace, Rhythm and Timing. The Salisbury Mujahadeen invented PRaT did they? As David Essex so rightly sang: "I don't fink so."

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I can only give my preference, having tried setting my system up in a few ways. I must also point out that I do not think they type of cable used matters, providing it is well made and sufficient size for the length being used for speaker cable.

The best overall sound for me was achieved by having the equipment stand well out of the way, rather than between the speakers. This being the case, I was left with two options to check into, either having the stand on a side wall, long interconnects, placing the amps behind the speakers and short speaker cables, or moving the rack to the other end of the room, short interconnects and long speaker leads. I tried the side wall placement both ways, as I had the cables available to do so.

The difference between speaker cable and interconnect cable lengths was to a great extent negligible, other than the change in speaker cable core size, as in moving from around 2mm to 4mm brought noticeable improvements to the sound.

The biggest improvement was the placement of the stand. The simple act of taking it away, (well away) from the area of the speakers was marked. Taking it away from ‘’centre stage’’ as it where to the side of the room improved the sound, moving the stand to the other end of the room improved the sound even more. Given that the side of the room placement was just plain messy visually and practically meant that the end of room placement sounded better was a bonus. It also meant that I needed 11m leads to be able to it. As I am sure you can accept, 11m interconnects are not exactly easy to lay hands on, so I just settled on the Long speaker leads.

I suppose what I am saying is that the placement of the equipment stand in relationship to the speaker plane/listening zone will have more bearing on how the system sounds than the length of cable used, providing the cable lengths remain sensible

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I am gathering evidence to support and with equal vigour to oppose the view that long interconnects + short loudspeaker cables (between preamp and 2 x mono power amps) offers a superior sound to the more conventional short interconnects + long loudspeaker lines approach.

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Howard,

Why not just have short interconnects and short speaker cable and get the best of both worlds? ;)

I'm being somewhat facetious, of course, but if you position the components on a rack in between but well in front of the speakers (right in between is a sonic no-no as Colin has pointed out, but sufficiently in front of the rack is absolutely fine) with the speakers as close to the equipment as is sonically acceptable then the above can easily be achieved.

However, of course, it all depends on positional restrictions with the room itself vis-à-vis domestic harmony, so I guess that's what this conundrum is really all about.

One thing I've always wanted to try is having the speakers in a different room altogether from the equipment, say in a room next door. One could do it in such a way that the speakers in the room next door are backing on to the wall where the equipment is in the opposite room, to keep the speaker cable as short as possible, and then feed it through the wall to the system. Having speakers in the same room as the equipment, with all the vibrations they chuck into the room and hence also into the equipment, must be one of the most sonically detrimental things most of us do, of course that horrible thing called practicality usually always wins...

Has anyone ever tried this, though, and compared the difference?

Marco.

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Originally Posted by Marco

Howard,

Why not just have short interconnects and short speaker cable and get the best of both worlds? ;)

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In a Naim system, empirically, I found 7m NACA5 better than old 5m NACA5, I'm sure it was because I threw the goldfich out with the fishtank :lol:

Peter, if I remember correctly (it's a long time now since I've used NACA5, and indeed Naim gear) there is a minimum length to use NACA5 for optimum performance. You may have just hit that zone.

If not, goodness knows what else it was - there are so many variables it's virtually impossible to reach a meaningful explanation.

Marco.

Good question Howard,
I agree with Colin completely about the equipment as far away as possible. My gear's 24 feet away & 4 feet behind the sofa - much more significant than cable lengths.

But........I tried all the permutations I could think of & have settled on long interconnects & short(ish) speaker cables. However, this was not for any reason of this sounding better than the other way, as I couldn't detect a difference. The reason was for neatness & cost - bi-amping means I need much more speaker cable than interconnect. I am perfectly capable of hearing differences between cables, but failed to do so here.

I make up my own cables from a stock of stuff I own so 30 feet or so is no problem!!

What intrigues me more is why I can't tell the difference between speaker cable pairs of different lengths (in my system) yet everyone I ever spoke to who tried to sell me cables in the past assured me of the end of the world as we know it if I ever should consider such an idea...hmmm

TGW,

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What intrigues me more is why I can't tell the difference between speaker cable pairs of different lengths (in my system) yet everyone I ever spoke to who tried to sell me cables in the past assured me of the end of the world as we know it if I ever should consider such an idea...hmmm

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From experience it's simply the fact that unless you're using really crap badly designed cable then you'd probably have to use about a mile of the stuff before any detectable (by ear) sonic degradation would occur, depending of course on the amplifier(s) being used. Some are fussier in their relationship with speaker cable than others.

I also agree with Colin and you about equipment being positioned away from speakers; indeed this is how I have things in my own set-up. However, I have also heard excellent results with positioning as I've described earlier. There are no set rules with regard to system set-up - experiment and see what works best in your particular room, and with your speakers.

Marco.

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Originally Posted by Marco

if you position the components on a rack in between and just in front of the speakers (right in between is a sonic no-no as Colin has pointed out, but in front of the rack is absolutely fine)

Marco.

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Speakers either side of the rack, but just in front of it is absolutely fine????

Not in my experience it's not - Get the gear out of the way if you possibly can.

In my old house I used to do this and I thought it sounded good. Then we moved the room around a bit and put the gear with longer cables into a little room with a wide opening that adjoined the main room (you could say the room was L-shaped but that would be streching it a bit).

This change was better than any single component change I've ever made.

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Speakers either side of the rack, but just in front of it is absolutely fine????

Not in my experience it's not - Get the gear out of the way if you possibly can.

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See my last reply :)

Marco.

I just did

Cool :smoking:

Marco.

My system is unfortunatly (may be) in a L shaped room. I have tried having the amps etc in the ''other half'' of the room. It was placed on the same external wall as the speakers but behind the dividing part of the wall. I thought it well out of the way of the speakers line of fire, easy to get at to change discs etc, and cuts down on the cable length required. I did not notice any change in the sound compared to the previously tried mid way solution. The lay out as is, that is equipment at one of a 16' ish room, behind the sofa, speakers at the other end does seem to give me the best overall balance. I had assumed that the removal of the rack from between the speakers was the main reason for the improved sound. This was proved to be wrong when we ''short'' term placed a console table thing between the speakers (well behind) while decorating elsewhere. That had no effect at all on the sound.

I'm not surprised it didn't, Colin. Such things are liable to have no effect.

TV's are the worst thing you can put between your speakers, particularly the old kind before flat-screens were invented.

If you want to ruin the sound of your hi-fi system, plonk a big old TV right in the middle!

Marco.

hi guys,
all you're really doing is playing with capacitance and resistance/reactance [again] the difference it makes will depend on a few things, i.e. the ability of your preamp to drive long lengths of cable, i.e. it should have a relatively low output impedance to do this without any degradation of the frequencies you're transmitting, the amplifiers output impedance should also be as low as possible not to see a long cable as a problem, or the speakers and cable should be matched to the load [valve amps] to get the correct power transfer at all frequencies, of course there’s also the capacitance of each cable to throw into the equation, capacitance and reactance will always have an affect at one particular frequency extreme or another, it just depend on the value and the equipments ability to overcome its affects. So, in my opinion, either situation can be a problem, depending on your equipment's design.
anthony,TD...:)

And your system works quite happily with your gear in between the speakers, albeit the speakers are well out in front :)

Marco.

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Originally Posted by Marco

TGW,



From experience it's simply the fact that unless you're using really crap badly designed cable then you'd probably have to use about a mile of the stuff before any detectable (by ear) sonic degradation would occur, depending of course on the amplifier(s) being used. Some are fussier in their relationship with speaker cable than others.


Marco.

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This gets closer to the thing that really intrigues me.

It's all about your ear collecting the information & your brain processing it. Now I'm a strong believer in the power of the brain to perform 'error correction' to a greater or lesser extent.

I often heard it said in relation to speakers with not much deep bass that your brain makes up for what you don't hear. I used to think that was a load of old tosh - now I'm not so sure. Of course the brain can't put the physical thump in your chest that a big speaker can, but maybe it can make you think you heard it.

Now if that's the case, then why shouldn't your brain be able to correct things like imbalances in stereo information like different lengths of cables.

If you need convincing of the power of your brain to process information and apply error correction just like a CD player then you need to read the following paragraph which staggered me & started me thinking about all this stuff..............

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mind.

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, it lokos at the wrod as a wlohe and tehn rletaes it to the ohetr wodrs nxet to it.


.............see what I mean?

Hehe... Very interesting!

I know people who write like that without realising they're doing anything wrong :lol:

Marco.

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Originally Posted by Marco

Hehe... Very interesting!

I know people who write like that without realising they're doing anything wrong :lol:

Marco.

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And most of them write for hifi magazines!

I believe it's referred to as 'inventive prose' ;)

Marco.

Why is in between the speakers the worst place to site the equipment?

It seems to be about the quietest place in my listening room. :scratch:

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Originally Posted by The Grand Wazoo

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mind.

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, it lokos at the wrod as a wlohe and tehn rletaes it to the ohetr wodrs nxet to it.

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Or as the younger of us would say: FCUK YUO.:lolsign:

There be Dragons and myths guarding those cables.

There be bloody Dragons living in my garage. I'm scared of it. :sofa:

Haha!

Some preamp outputs just don't like driving long interconnects - my old Croft preamp for example is fine (if a little "soft toned") with 1m approx interconnect to power amp, but give it 9m runs to my active ATC's (with 20K single ended input impedance?) and all the top energy disappears. My other old preamp (an AVI S2000MP+P [am I allowed to mention them? :)]) which has a miniscule output impedance (and uses chunky metal canned trannies in the line stage which run quite hot I discovered) and seems very transparent to whatever source you use with it, drives the long leads with total disdain, as well as the second set of variable outs driving an old lightly tweaked Crown D60, which amazes me how musical and open it is, bearing in mind its 35 yrs approx. of age and 10% resistors all over (it does use 1% in critical bits and they were expensive back then).

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Originally Posted by DSJR

Haha!

Some preamp outputs just don't like driving long interconnects - my old Croft preamp for example is fine (if a little "soft toned") with 1m approx interconnect to power amp, but give it 9m runs to my active ATC's (with 20K single ended input impedance?) and all the top energy disappears. My other old preamp (an AVI S2000MP+P [am I allowed to mention them? :)]) which has a miniscule output impedance (and uses chunky metal canned trannies in the line stage which run quite hot I discovered) and seems very transparent to whatever source you use with it, drives the long leads with total disdain, as well as the second set of variable outs driving an old lightly tweaked Crown D60, which amazes me how musical and open it is, bearing in mind its 35 yrs approx. of age and 10% resistors all over (it does use 1% in critical bits and they were expensive back then).

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hi dave,
thats exactly what a good pre-amplifier should do, if any source equipment, be it CD, PHONO, PREAMP,etc,has a relitively high output impedence, ie above 10k etc,[marco take note:lol:] it will struggle driving long capacitive/reactive loads,mainly as you quite rightly discovered in the top end frequencies, the low frequencies are also affected in all be it a more less obvious way.
anthony,TD...:)

Hehe... Fortunately I don't use long interconnects!

Dave,

Anthony designs some fabulous grounded grid preamps which give my modifed Charisma-X a hard time. There's something special and fundamentally 'right' about the presentation of a good GG design.

Marco.

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Originally Posted by Marco

Howard,


One thing I've always wanted to try is having the speakers in a different room altogether from the equipment, say in a room next door. One could do it in such a way that the speakers in the room next door are backing on to the wall where the equipment is in the opposite room, to keep the speaker cable as short as possible, and then feed it through the wall to the system. Having speakers in the same room as the equipment, with all the vibrations they chuck into the room and hence also into the equipment, must be one of the most sonically detrimental things most of us do, of course that horrible thing called practicality usually always wins...

Has anyone ever tried this, though, and compared the difference?

Marco.

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Seems to me there are two possible problems here. First is that unless they're load bearing, most internal walls are of lightweight construction and transparent to whatever's going on between sources and speakers. Second is that a lot of the gear we all like to listen to looks good as well as sounds good. I suppose there's a third problem. Putting all the controls not just out of arms reach but in another room opens a whole new bag of worms. Gives the disenchanted the ability as well as the desire to "turn that racket down". They can also turn it up. Back in the 1970's, the offspring of a guy I knew wrecked a pair of ESL57s by cranking the volume. Controls weren't in another room; they were hidden in a pine cabinet. By the time he got to them, the damage was done. I believe the record involved was by Donny Osmond....................:guitar:

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Originally Posted by combwork

Seems to me there are two possible problems here. First is that unless they're load bearing, most internal walls are of lightweight construction and transparent to whatever's going on between sources and speakers. Second is that a lot of the gear we all like to listen to looks good as well as sounds good. I suppose there's a third problem. Putting all the controls not just out of arms reach but in another room opens a whole new bag of worms. Gives the disenchanted the ability as well as the desire to "turn that racket down". They can also turn it up. Back in the 1970's, the offspring of a guy I knew wrecked a pair of ESL57s by cranking the volume. Controls weren't in another room; they were hidden in a pine cabinet. By the time he got to them, the damage was done.

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I believe the record involved was by Donny Osmond....................:guitar:

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ohhhhh the shame of it!!!:lol:

You boleks jsut need to rleax and let yuor mdnis cpmoleate teh pitcrue. Tehn you w'uoldnt haer the dffirence bteeewn one plceaemnt of kit and the ohter.

Tim

Well I waited for ages for someone to say something about my post being a load of old boleks but I didn't think it would take that long