How important is it to have identical speaker cable length?

I would ask why not keep the length the same? Are you trying to save money? This hobby is all about frivolous spending any where and any time you can. Richard Vandersteen has written and commented on this subject extensively. His conclusion is speaker cable need to be the same length and as short as you can get away with. You are better to have long cable runs in the components than to the speakers.

I recall being worried about this question years ago.  After asking a lot of knowledgable people at that time. I decided it is not worth being concerned about.

I say do what you need to do and enjoy the music. 

Anything more than about a 4" difference in length will smear the center image.

If you're ok with that, go for it.

And by '4"' I meant 400 feet.

@jerryg123.  

“Even if engineers have said the values are so minute the human ear can not differentiate the capacitance or inductance.”


Especially if engineers say that. Going by “engineers” quoting variables is the best way to end up with a poor sounding system.