Long Speaker Cables or Long Interconnects?

pea · « **on:** 2 Jan 2006, 02:47 am »

Hello Everyone,

I posted this same question on the diyAudio forum and got inconclusive feedback so I thought I would ask here as well.

My question is if you have to have either a long speaker cable or a long interconnect (running from GK-1 to AKSA amp); which is better?

I know you want to keep cable lengths as short as possible but in this setup if I use my mono block AKSA 100+ amps I can have short speaker cables but long interconnects running from the GK-1. Or if I use my other amp I'll have short interconnects running from the GK-1 but long speaker cables.

The long cable, whichever it is, will have to be approximately 16 feet.

Which would you choose... the rock or the hard place?

Thanks -
Bruce

konut · « **Reply #1 on:** 2 Jan 2006, 03:18 am »

Long interconnect, short speaker cable. Thats what I'm doing and I'm not using a preamp, just a passive attenuator. My view is that the signal loss through speaker cable is much greater than through the interconnect cable. I use monoblocks as well. Speaker cable is 39 inches and the interconnects are 9 ft. Sounds fine.

AKSA · « **Reply #2 on:** 2 Jan 2006, 03:19 am »

Hi Bruce,

I'd choose the hard place - the 16' speaker cables - as long as they are low capacitance, which means no Goetz or ribbon type cables.

If the hot and cold speaker wires are separate, not joined by insulation, all the better.

The long interconnects will tend to throttle higher frequencies unless they are very low capacitance. It would work, but you'd likely lose a bit of top end.

Cheers,

Hugh

pea · « **Reply #3 on:** 2 Jan 2006, 03:48 am »

Hey Hugh,

Thanks for your thoughts. I wish I could come up with a different arrangement but my new listening room is requiring me to place my speakers and components in a less than optimal arrangement.

I asked my wife if she would mind me moving all my gear into our living room which would work much better all around. She sort of made a face and went into the other room... gee I wonder what that means

Hope you all had a good new year!

Best wishes -
Bruce

Watson · « **Reply #4 on:** 2 Jan 2006, 05:20 am »

I've tried both and much prefer longer speaker cables. Several years ago I ran a setup that was 45 feet from my speakers. There was a fairly serious degredation in sound when using 45 foot interconnects, but with large enough gauge speaker cables the effect of the 45 foot distance was minor.

Geoff-AU · « **Reply #5 on:** 2 Jan 2006, 08:41 am »

My (un)educated guess would be in favour of longer speaker cables as well. Interconnects are carrying low level signal and the source impedance of the driver (pre-amp) is at least 100 ohms. You're also about to amplify any difference that the LRC of the cable makes to the sound (as well as any interference picked up), so the stakes are higher.

A speaker cable is carrying a high level, low impedance signal (the output impedance of a typical SS amp is a fraction of an ohm IIRC). The LRC of the cable affects what sort of load the speaker places on the amp, and the damping factor seen by the speakers. But with nice meaty speaker cables these effects would be minimised more easily than trying to run long interconnects.

mgalusha · « **Reply #6 on:** 2 Jan 2006, 01:48 pm »

I vote for longer speaker cables as well. Much less chance for signal degredation with a high level signal than a low level signal.

My room requires long, about 45ft., speaker cables and I've tried long IC's, both balanced and unbalanced, and it always sounds better with short interconnects and long speaker cables.

However, I had the opportunity to try the 100+ N in that system and it didn't work very well with that much cable. It sounded wonderful in another room with short cables and essentially the same speaker load. Fortunately 16ft cables are a long way from 45ft, so I bet it will work fine.

mike

pea · « **Reply #7 on:** 2 Jan 2006, 02:39 pm »

This is great!

Thanks everyone I do appreciate your feedback and comments very much. You've been very helpful and I'm hoping to spend the afternoon running cable and getting my gear setup.

Best wishes to you all -
Bruce

John151 · « **Reply #8 on:** 2 Jan 2006, 03:56 pm »

I have 40 ft speaker cables runs, and have been planning on converting my Stereo Stratos to Mono Blocks, and placing the mono blocks directly behind each speaker, resulting in 40 ft IC runs. This project will be expensive, and running the cables will not be easy. The reason for moving the amps is that I don't have the room for monoblocks in the equipment rack. Hmmm, what to do.

pea · « **Reply #9 on:** 2 Jan 2006, 04:11 pm »

Hey John151,

Been doing what you're getting ready to do and it worked great. I had 2' interconnects and 18" speaker cables. It was wonderful!!

I needed to rearrange my gear to get a much higher WAF which requires the long runs mentioned above. And since I'm in cabinet building mode right now (putting my newly completed GK-1R in a case) I'm going to build a new case for my AKSA N100+ amps as well.

Good luck with your project -
Bruce

andyr · « **Reply #10 on:** 2 Jan 2006, 08:04 pm »

Quote from: John151

I have 40 ft speaker cables runs, and have been planning on converting my Stereo Stratos to Mono Blocks, and placing the mono blocks directly behind each speaker, resulting in 40 ft IC runs. This project will be expensive, and running the cables will not be easy. The reason for moving the amps is that I don't have the room for monoblocks in the equipment rack. Hmmm, what to do.

Hi John,

I have 3 x AKSA monoblocks behind each speaker, together with a 3-way mono active crossover. My GK-1 pre-amp and sources are up the other end of a 27' room ... so I have approx 36' shielded ICs (and 4' speaker cables).

As Hugh as pointed out, you need low capacitance ICs if you want to set your system up this way but this is possible to achieve. I certainly don't think I'm getting any HF rolloff - my Maggie ribbons would reveal this if I was!

Regards,

Andy

AKSA · « **Reply #11 on:** 2 Jan 2006, 08:34 pm »

Bruce,

I can vouch for AndyR's system; it is spectacular. However, he went to huge effort to make very low capacitance interconnects, AND his active crossover is at the speakers with the amps so any HF shortfall can be compensated in the crossovers.

And to confirm Mike's situation; for a 45' speaker cable, the capacitance would have to be very low to sound really good. In response to Pmkap's recommendation, I now use the Tara Labs Phase II; mine are 15' and VERY low capacitance.

Cheers,

Hugh

andyr · « **Reply #12 on:** 2 Jan 2006, 09:20 pm »

Quote from: AKSA

Bruce,

I can vouch for AndyR's system; it is spectacular. However, he went to huge effort to make very low capacitance interconnects, AND his active crossover is at the speakers with the amps so any HF shortfall can be compensated in the crossovers.

And to confirm Mike's situation; for a 45' speaker cable, the capacitance would have to be very low to sound really good. In response to Pmkap's recommendation, I now use the Tara Labs Phase II; mine are 15' and VERY low capacitance.

Cheers,

Hugh

Thanks for your kind words, Hugh.

Wot do you define as "VERY low capacitance" ... 10 pF/m? 15pF/m?

Regards,

Andy

pea · « **Reply #13 on:** 2 Jan 2006, 10:36 pm »

Much thanks everyone for your excellent comments.

I'm going the long speaker cable route. I'm going to grab some of the fabled orange and black Home Depot extension cord and make a seperate run for each + and - and be done.

I'm to the point where I need to get things set back up, get the music playing and just listen to the sweet sound coming out of my AKSA equipment for awhile.

My audio system has been down for several weeks and I'm starting to get surly and not fit to be around people

Cheers my friends -
Bruce

AKSA · « **Reply #14 on:** 2 Jan 2006, 10:54 pm »

Hi Andy,

Anything less than 30pF/metre, or 10pF/foot, is very low. It's difficult to achieve, too, as you know.

Bruce,

Mains cord with the conductors separated is actually pretty good. You will have good current capacity and very low capacitance. Be sure not to coil the cable at any point; this increases inductance. It will sound pretty good, believe me, for years I used 15A auto hookup wire, multistrand copper with high temp PVC insulation. Worked very well, and it was color coded, easy to connect!

Cheers,

Hugh

andyr · « **Reply #15 on:** 3 Jan 2006, 10:56 am »

Quote from: AKSA

Bruce,

I can vouch for AndyR's system; it is spectacular. However, he went to huge effort to make very low capacitance interconnects, AND his active crossover is at the speakers with the amps so any HF shortfall can be compensated in the crossovers.

Cheers,

Hugh

Hi Hugh,

Not quite, I think. Any HF "rolloff" caused by too-high-C ICs between preamp and active crossover will cause the "ribbon HF" frequency response to slowly droop as frequency increases ... so it is not true to say "any HF shortfall can be compensated (by increasing the HF gain) in the crossovers".

Increasing the HF gain of my active crossovers increases the whole frequency band ... it will not restore a "drooping HF" back to flat!

Regards,

Andy

BobM · « **Reply #16 on:** 3 Jan 2006, 01:07 pm »

Wow, I'm surprised at how many people voted for longer speaker cables. I always thought the conventional wisdom went the other way.

I've lived with long speaker cables (25 ft) and short uinterconnects (1 meter or less) ever since my passive preamp days. There was a technical article somewhere that showed the signal degredation over length for an interconnect vs a speaker cable. The low level signal in the interconnect degraded far faster over length than a 12 guage speaker cable. That convinced me, even though the technical results didn't show appreciable loss until you get to 30-40 feet either way.

One other item to consider, for interconnects you want to keep the capacitancel as low as possible. For speaker cables you want to keep the inductance as low as possible. Actually, shooting for low #'s in both categories is ideal, but if you have to choose one over the other this is the way to go.

Enjoy,
Bob

Geoff-AU · « **Reply #17 on:** 4 Jan 2006, 07:36 am »

Quote from: andyr

Increasing the HF gain of my active crossovers increases the whole frequency band ... it will not restore a "drooping HF" back to flat!

that's what I thought!

rabbitz · « **Reply #18 on:** 4 Jan 2006, 01:14 pm »

Quote from: BobM

I always thought the conventional wisdom went the other way.

That's the same as what I have always read even though I've always used short (<500mm interconnects) and longer speaker cables.