2. cables
  3. 126087-107

Shorten my speaker cables?

For years I loved in a home where the only practical place to put all my gear was along a wall,to the side of the speakers. That necessitated a longer run of speaker cable- specifically, for a number of years I've used, quite successfully, Analysis Plus Oval 9's, in a 16 foot run. 

Now I've moved and I my gear is along the front wall between the speakers, so my 16 foot run is more than I need. Been toying with the idea of shorter cables, and wondered if I would hear any benefit in having my 16 foot run cut and reterminated resulting in a 10 foot run plus a spare 6 foot run which I'm sure at some point I would use for something.

The other thought was perhaps to switch speaker cables all together. My balanced ICs are all Acoustic Zen Matrix II and I've heard good things about the AZ satori speaker cables. 
128x128zavato
ebm
9,311 posts
 
Im using 2 Meters speaker cable and 21Ft interconnect cable as i don't want my rack between the speaker many people say more than 2 Meters is no good.

stereo5's avatar
stereo5
6,254 posts
 

"many people say more than 2 Meters is no good."

That is a bunch of bologna.  I have been using 22 foot runs of speaker cable in my main system for over 21 years and my system sounds killer.  just for the heck of it, 5 years ago I moved my equipment closer to my speakers and tried a 5 foot run of the same cable.  After going back and forth over a couple of weeks and with a few of my audio buddy's listening as well, we came to the conclusion that there was absolutely no difference in sound between a 5 foot run and 22 foot run.

czarivey
5,680 posts
 
Not bologna at all. Many people just got used to listen to what most people say due to the fact of convenience of not using own mind. Swimming downstream is much easier, but not every time justified.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,417 posts
 
If you cut each 16' cable in half and terminate the new ends with spades or bananas, you'll have two pair of 8' cables, great for bi-wiring or going "shotgun" (two cables for each non-biwired speaker). 
ozzy's avatar
ozzy
7,204 posts
 

zavato,

To your main question, I doubt if you will hear any difference going from a 16 foot to 10 foot speaker cables. Perhaps if the cables were of very thin gauge there may be a problem but with your Analysis cables it should make no difference.

On the other hand, if to use shorter speaker cables results in using longer interconnects that may cause problems for some Amps.

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