Thoughts on interconnect vs. speaker cable length.

Thanks Elizabeth and Almarg. I was aware of the high output impedance of the 3A would beg for shorter ICs. The 4M pair that I was using seemed to diminish dynamics. I must admit that this is my first forum post and the first time that I have been in position to consider and try for myself such options. I for the first time have a dedicated room for my system, so room treatment is another area I am playing with. I think I might just be having to much fun with all this. Mike

Hi, I find that 1-meter i/c and 6 ft speaker cables work best sonically,if sound is what you are after,not all audiophiles can do this,they need longer runs of whatever to make their connections!Happy listening!

Thanks again to all respondees. I also have my equipment rack (sans amp) by my listening chair and am currently running AQ King cobra between sources and pre and pre to amp (6 ft). Am currently using 15 ft Monster Z2 bi-amp cables between Amp and speakers. I intend to explore other speaker cable options. This arrangement proves so far to be superior to the 12ft AQ diamond back and 8 ft kimber kable 8tc combination I was using. IMO the improvement was due to the different ICs. Thoughts on speaker cables?

I didn't realize that cable length affects phase shift. I stumbled into an interesting article by Empirical Audio: Is it better to have short interconnects and long speaker cables or visa-versa? He measured rolloff and phase shift and came to these general conclusions:

- Regardless of the cost of interconnect and speaker cable, it is always better to make the interconnects shorter and the speaker cable longer.

- Inexpensive interconnects should be limited to 1 meter or shorter.

- More optimized interconnects can be as long as 15 meters.

- 11 AWG ZIP used as speaker cable should be limited to 12 feet or shorter.

- More optimized speaker cables can be as long as 40 meters.

It's all about synergies...

I own the AI 3B and before that 3A and have had great success with 20 foot interconnects from the pre to the amps. I should note that the amps (VTL compact 100's) were made with pro market in mind so their sensitivity is somewhat on the high side at 775mV. I use Crimson MusicLink interconnects and speaker cables... FWIW, my speaker cables are 8ft.

Good luck and enjoy.
Tony