Speaker cable legnths

ezc

Any input as to speaker cables being the same legnth? I have always set up systems using the same legnths for the front speakers L/C/R & equal legnths for the rears either L/R or L/BC/R. I have seen some posts that use diffrent legnths for each speaker. Wouldntn different legnths affect the sound & timing?

John K.

No EZ, there's no good reason for taking special care about equal speaker cable lengths. As far as timing goes, since the audio signals travel along the wire at nearly the speed of light(about 186,000 miles a second), a difference of say 10 feet in cable length would mean a delay of less than a millionth of a second, well below detectability. Moving your head a fraction of an inch would have far more effect.

As to other effects on sound, unless the difference in length was huge, there'd be no noticeable effect. With a very great difference the increased resistance in the longer cable would make that speaker volume lower by a miniscule amount, which the balance control could correct. The increased resistance interacting with the changes of impedance in that speaker could also cause that speaker's frequency response to vary up and down slightly as the impedance varied up and down. In reality, no effects are noticeable in any reasonable setup.

[Deleted User]

Hello John,
Thanks for the very helpful answer. To give an idea of how fast signals reach the speaker from the amplifier consider that if we think of the highest frequency normally considered in high fidelity as 20,000 Hz. An audio signal consisting of this frequency would repeat itself 20,000 times in one second. If we sent the first half of this frequency moving down a very long piece of speaker wire, when the second half of this pulse, 1/20,000 th of a second later, was ready to be sent, the first pulse would already be 9.3 miles down the length of the wire. In terms of time, the two pulses would only be 1/20,000 of a second apart, but in terms of distance it would be over 9 miles.
Imagine how quickly signals reach the speaker when the connecting wire is only 25 feet long?
Regards, Ken

ezc

Thanks for the info! This helped me understand cable legnth a whole lot more!