Speaker Cable Lengths. Wooden Floors. Impact on Sound

Audiophile Realist -- Wed, 08/06/2008 - 17:40

Hello All,

Does speaker cable length have a dramatic impact on sound? I've had to go from a 10' paid to a 40' pair. I've also put in wooden floors. While I expected the highs to be more prominent, my lower end feels far less visceral compared to my old carpeted floor. Just wondering what your personal experiences are.

Thanks

The Signal Coll... -- Wed, 08/06/2008 - 22:23

Audiophile Realist wrote:Hello All,

Thanks

My guess is that, having quadrupled your resistance moving from 10' speaker cables to 40' speaker cables, you will have affected the damping factor of your amplifier and this will contribute to loss of woofer control - thus contributing to the changes you've noticed in the low frequencies.

The Signal Collection, LLC
North American Distributors
of Connoisseur-Grade Hi-Fi

Robert Harley -- Thu, 08/07/2008 - 21:57

Forty feet of speaker cable isn't a good idea if you can help it. I agree with Chris that that much resistance will reduce the amplifier's effective damping factor.

sharpnine -- Tue, 08/26/2008 - 13:48

I recently upgraded my speaker cable and reconfigured my system to shorten the cable. I put the amp up front with the speakers and a long (7 meter) interconnect pair. The sound improvement was tremendous (despite the longer interconnect). I also upgraded from a 16-gauge industrial copper wire speaker cable that was run under the house by a home theater installer--probably 30 feet or so. I now am using 8 foot MIT cables.

Here's what I am interested in: I use a Rogue stereo 90 tube amp, and recently switched to 4-ohm sonus faber (GPD) speakers. At that point the amp started stressing--or so it seemed to me. I used the correct 4-ohm taps. But when I activated the tube bias gauge, two of the four tubes showed the bias needle bouncing around with the music rather than holding stable. With the new cable it stays very stable. This seems to me to have been a measurement of a problem with the speaker cable. Is that right? Does it make sense?

Audiophile Realist -- Tue, 08/26/2008 - 15:25

I've been tweaking, and I think I'm back to normal power-wise. I never believed in cable burn-in, but with time I do think that the power is back where it should be. I also wonder if my speakers needed to be broken in again, after being unused for 7 weeks.

Steven Stone -- Tue, 08/26/2008 - 16:17

The mechanical parts of speakers, especially dynamic speakers, often benefit from break-in when new. as for "re-break-in" after prolonged periods of rest, I don't think so...

The electronic parts in speaker crossovers often contain resisters and capacitors that can need some reforming for optimal performance, but such "electronic break-in" usually doesn't require more than an hour.

In other words, after one evening listening session your speakers should be performing optimally. It's where you put them that will have a greater impact...

Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications

sweet34 -- Wed, 10/13/2010 - 00:35

whenever i take my headphones of there is an electronic sound in my ears!?

outsource jobs

Audiophile Realist -- Tue, 08/26/2008 - 18:35

Even the rubber surrounds of the cones? If they haven't been stretched in a long time? I didn't change position of the speakers since my first listen post-renovations.