Speaker wire length

Squishman

Squishman

Audioholic General
I am going to add mid-heights to my living room system. I have always used the old rule of thumb to keep speaker wire length equal for every pair. Is this still true with modern receivers with calibration, etc? My left side is way closer to the amp.
 
Verdinut

Verdinut

Audioholic Spartan
I am going to add mid-heights to my living room system. I have always used the old rule of thumb to keep speaker wire length equal for every pair. Is this still true with modern receivers with calibration, etc? My left side is way closer to the amp.
You haven't specified the difference in length between the two speaker wires. If you are talking about a length of 10 feet or less, you shouldn't have to worry. But if your speakers have a true impedance of 4 ohms and the lengths differ by more than 10 feet, you could use a one size bigger gauge for the longer run.
 
W

Wardog555

Full Audioholic
No. It really doesn't matter on speaker wire length differences
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
I am going to add mid-heights to my living room system. I have always used the old rule of thumb to keep speaker wire length equal for every pair. Is this still true with modern receivers with calibration, etc? My left side is way closer to the amp.
Keeping speaker wires the same length is BOGUS, and absolute bunk. ALL speaker leads should be no longer than required. Any opinion to the contrary is wrong.
 
Squishman

Squishman

Audioholic General
Keeping speaker wires the same length is BOGUS, and absolute bunk. ALL speaker leads should be no longer than required. Any opinion to the contrary is wrong.
Well, that is great! Maybe I could taylor some my other leads then!
 
gene

gene

Audioholics Master Chief
Administrator
So odd people forget we have articles on this very topic and link elsewhere


 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Might depend on how OCD one is....I've heard some say it drives them crazy just knowing the lengths are different :)
 
F

fmw

Audioholic Ninja
Some conext. An electrical signal will go around the planet about 10 times in a second. That should lead you to the understanding that a few feet difference from one to another is not audible. Not all things that are measurable are also audible.
 
Verdinut

Verdinut

Audioholic Spartan
Some conext. An electrical signal will go around the planet about 10 times in a second. That should lead you to the understanding that a few feet difference from one to another is not audible. Not all things that are measurable are also audible.
It's not a question of speed of electricity transfer, but wire resistance.
 
Speedskater

Speedskater

Audioholic General
Yep, it's total end-to-end wire resistance with respect to the loudspeaker's impedance curve.

For most reasonable loudspeakers and reasonable cables, reasonable length differences won't matter.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
I had to sit through a seminar at CEDIA where the guy was spouting the equal length BS and he spent more time telling us how cool he and his company were than telling us anything that might be useful.

This stuff isn't just the domain of forums and magazines, it's in the pro AV world, too.
 
F

fmw

Audioholic Ninja
It's not a question of speed of electricity transfer, but wire resistance.
Yes we understand that an electrical signal would be aborbed before it made it around the world. I was adding context to the idea being concerned about mismatched length in speaker wires.
 
haraldo

haraldo

Audioholic Warlord
Disussion with ChatGPT and John Siau of Benchmark media, on speaker cables
read: John Siau instructs ChatGPT, rubbing the snake-oil away from ChqatGPT / Will ChatGPT remember this?

 

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